by business editor Trevor Sturgess

More than 100 jobs have been lost with the collapse of a 150-year old building firm.

R J Barwick, based in Coombe Valley Road, Dover, has gone into administration. All 110 staff have been made redundant.

Richard Barwick, the seventh generation of his family to run the firm, said it was “heartbreaking.”

The company, which was founded in 1850 by an earlier Richard Barwick, entered administration on August 28. Directors appointed BDO Stoy Hayward, Gatwick, “to protect the interests of creditors.”

Mr Barwick said the shock decision was taken after the firm’s bankers withdrew support and some clients had failed to pay their bills on time.

The £25 million-turnover company had specialised in public sector work such as schools and social housing. Kent County Council was one of its major clients. Barwick has also used its specialist skills to refurbish Dover Castle Keep, Scotney Castle and the Archbishops’ Palace in Canterbury. Clients included the National Trust, English Heritage and The Landmark Trust.

Mr Barwick said: “There were not enough work opportunities to sustain the company. I would say the construction industry has been absolutely decimated by the credit crunch and the financial crisis, and construction activity is falling. We’re in probably the hardest recession for public sector building contractors since the War.”

He did not see much prospect of an upturn as local councils faced potentially massive funding shortages. While national projects were going ahead, there was “very little” going on at the local level and prospects were “extremely grim.”

Mr Barwick added that there was little hope of saving the company and he predicted that the same fate could befall other builders. “It is probably the end of the Barwick name in construction in Kent. All other firms are struggling as well and we will see many firms going the same way as us.”

The news came as the number of property and construction companies going bust is running at more than twice the rate that they were at the start of the credit crunch. Research by accounting firm Wilkins Kennedy found that 17 real estate and construction-related businesses are going bust every day (1,573 in Q2 2009) compared to 7.6 when the credit crunch first enveloped the UK economy (696 in Q3 2007).