It's already been a year of store closures with top brands such as Toys R Us, Maplin, Prezzo and Carpetright suffering money troubles.

Kent has a long history of big businesses going by the wayside over the years.

KentOnline looks back at some of the most famous.

Betteshanger Colliery - Deal

This 121-hectare site was the largest coal mine in Kent, which had its first shaft dug in 1924.

It was part of a network of collieries in the east of the county including Snowdown, Tilmanstone and Chislet.

It employed thousands of miners, who were regarded as among the most militant in the UK.

It was the only pit to strike during the Second World War and was the last colliery to return to work following the 1980s miners' strike.

It was also the last operating colliery in Kent, closing in 1989.

Today, the site is owned by Hadlow College Group and home to the Betteshangar Sustainable Parks project, which includes the Kent Mining Museum due to open this year.

There are also plans for a green technologies business park and a research and education centre.

Blue Circle Industries - Northfleet and Medway

The cement maker was founded in 1900 as Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers through the merger of 24 cement works.

It quickly became known informally by its brand the Blue Circle but did not formally adopt the name until 1978, around the time it was briefly the world's largest cement maker.

Its former plants included Swanscombe, Northfleet, Greenhithe and Stone in north Kent and the Martin Earles Works in Strood and Holborough Works.

By 1970 the North Kent cement industry had evolved to become the largest centre for the production of cement in Europe.

However, the potential for more economical manufacture elsewhere saw a decline in the industry and by 2007 only two operational kilns remained, both at Northfleet, and they closed by 2014.

Today, one of the large quarries created as a legacy of the cement industry is home to Bluewater shopping centre, while the Eastern Quarry is being filled with houses as part of Ebbsfleet Garden City.

In 2001, Blue Circle was bought by French company Lafarge.

In 2015, Lafarge signed an option deal for 388 acres of its former Swanscombe Works, which closed in 1993, to be sold to the developers of the then London Paramount entertainment resort.

The developers of the theme park are yet to submit a planning application.

Bowater - Gravesend, Gillingham and Sittingbourne

Founded in 1881 by William Vansittart Bowater, the company was a supplier of newsprint, notably for the Daily Mail, Daily Mirro and the Daily Chronicle.

It established a paper-making mill in Northfleet in 1925 and by the end of 1930, the company was producing 22% of the UK's total newsprint output along with another plant in Ellesmere Port.

In 1936 the company bought both the Sittingbourne Paper Mill, which had grown to become the biggest in the world, and the Kemsley Paper Mill from Allied Newspapers.

Across four plants, Bowater was now producing 60% of British newsprint, making it the largest newsprint maker in Europe.

Yet after the outbreak of the Second World War, cuts to imports dramatically reduced its production ability and the Northfleet plant was axed.

After the war, Bowater diversified into packaging and set up a factory in Gillingham in the late 1950s.

It was sold to Crest in 1985 and closed in 2003. Its only remaining landmark is a large watertower, now based in a Tesco car park.

The nearby roundabout is still known as the Bowater roundabout.

The former Bowater site in Northfleet has since been revived under various guises and presently produces Andrex toilet tissue for Kimberly-Clark. Bowater sold its Sittingbourne and Kemsley Paper Mills to Finnish paper company Metsa Serla in 1998, which closed the Sittingbourne mill in 2007.

The Kemsley site is run today by DS Smith.

Fremlin's Brewery - Maidstone

A brewery had existed on Earl Street in the town centre since about 1790 but it gained its familiar name after Ralph Fremlin bought the site in 1861.

He expanded the premises the site became the first to mass-produce beer in bottles, which became a key factor its growth.

Its founder did not sell to pubs, believing them to be unethical, but after his death in 1910, the company rekindled its relationship with the pub trade, buying up smaller breweries around Kent and Essex.

Fremlin's had become Kent's largest brewery by the mid-20th century, having acquired around 800 pubs.

In 1949, it bought George Beer & Rigden in Faversham, along with its production plant, closing the site to move production to Maidstone in 1954, but then reopening it in 1961 to meet demand.

However, the company underwent a rapid decline after it was bought by Whitbread in 1967, which halted brewing in Maidstone in 1972.

Today, its former site is home to Fremlin's Walk shopping centre.

The Faversham brewery continued to produce Whitbread Trophy beer but closed in 1990 and is now home to a Tesco.

Marconi Avionics - Rochester

This defence and engineering business has been the subject of numerous takeovers over the years so read on carefully.

It traces its history back to early computer company Elliott Brothers, founded in 1804.

This company had been pioneering the use of computers in industry and in 1962, Elliott Flight Automation was established with its headquarters next to Rochester Airport.

Marconi itself was founded in Italy in 1897 and acquired by English Electric in 1946, which then bought Elliott Bros in 1967.

This was then acquired by GEC in 1968, which used the Marconi brand to market its defence businesses.

The name Marconi Avionics came into being in 1978 and changed to GEC Avionics in 1984.

In 1999, Marconi Electronic Systems - the defence arm of GEC - formed BAE Systems in a £7.7 billion merger with British Aerospace.

Today, it employs about 1,400 people at the site in Rochester Airport.

Sealink - Dover and Folkestone

When the railways were nationalised in 1948, they also owned ferry services as an extension of their transport lines to Europe and Ireland.

The Government passed an Act of Parliament in 1969 separating the ferry operations from the railways and the Sealink name was born in 1970.

Originally its focus was on transferring passengers and freight which had arrived by rail at ports like Folkestone and Dover but this was in decline by the end of the 1970s.

The focus switched to roll-on roll-off ferries and in 1984, it was sold to US-Virgin Island-based Sea Containers for just £66 million, changing its name to Sealink British Ferries a year later.

The business was acquired in a hostile takeover by the Swedish shipping group Stena Line in 1990.

It was run as Sealink Stena Line until 1995, when the Sealink name was finally dropped.

Thamesteel - Sheerness

Sheerness Steel Company first began producing steel near the town's naval docks in 1972.

It was designed to recycle scrap steel into rods and coils.

It survived a number of closure threats and potential changes of ownership before it was acquired by Thamesteel in 2003.

However, the company tumbled into administration in 2012, with the loss of 400 jobs.

There was a brief period when it was thought the mill may reopen after an announcement in 2016 that Liberty House, the company which acquired struggling Tata Steel, had plans to restart the bar and rod rolling mills.

It was later revealed the announcement was a mistake.

A large part of the mill in Blue Town has since been pulled down to make way for a giant car park for imported vehicles.

TVS - Maidstone

Television South was the franchise holder for the South and South East for ITV between 1982 and 1992.

It built the TV studios at Vinters Park, Maidstone, which made its first transmission in 1982.

After a stuttering start, Greg Dyke was appointed as director of programmes in 1984 and a year later he agreed a deal which allowed the station to get more of its shows onto ITV's network slots, including Bobby Davro on the Box, Catchphrase, C.A.T.S Eyes, Five Alive and Summertime Special.

It later also recorded Art Attack. At its height in 1987 - the same year Dyke left.

However an ill-fated takeover of American media company MTM Enterprises led to financial instability.

TVS stopped broadcasting in 1992 after losing its franchise to Meridian Broadcasting.

The Maidstone Studios was bought by its present owners Geoff Miles and Rowland Kinch in 2002 and is home to shows like Mister Maker and Take Me Out.

It hosted its first pantomime last year.