A long established village pub near Dereham has closed its doors after reopening last year with a bistro.Yaxham's Lord Nelson pub has been in the village for more than 100 years and last year was given permission to create a restaurant extension to open Hamilton's Bistro.

A long established village pub near Dereham has closed its doors after reopening last year with a bistro.

Yaxham's Lord Nelson pub has been in the village for more than 100 years and last year was given permission to create a restaurant extension to open Hamilton's Bistro.

Owners Louise and Bryan Aslett said the pub needed a restaurant to make it viable and said they spent �120,000 on work on it.

But now they say, due to lack of village support, they have had to close. They have placed a notice outside the pub and on their section of the village website.

The pub closed from the end of service on Christmas Day.

Mr Aslett said: 'When 52 pubs a week are closing a week people have to have the support of the village. No landlord here has experienced the support of the people in the village. No one has made the pub pay. That is why it was sold as a free house by Pubmaster.

'We didn't want to close but we haven't got the trade coming in.'

He said they would continue to live in the pub and expected to apply to Breckland Council for change of use to domestic use.