It's not really your average shop-closing sign but then Burchells of Brighton is not your average shop.

Burchells sells religious goods including crucifixes, luminous figures of Christ, nativity scenes, icons, statues, medallions, rosaries and necklets.

The owners thought something appropriate was called for and came up with: "Closing at Christmas (or before if we get fed up). Everything must go. THE END IS NIGH."

After nine years, Lawrence and Daphne Whitaker have decided to call it a day running one of the most curious shops in Sussex.

Hidden upstairs in a tiny workshop above the Gloucester Road shop, Mr Whitaker, 49, toils away each day nailing figures of Christ to the cross. He is one of the few people in England to make crucifixes.

He and his wife Daphne, 48, took over the shop, which has been selling its religious wares since 1975, as a going concern nine years ago.

The couple sell their products to gift shops across the country, to Windsor Castle, Arundel Castle, abbeys and monasteries and cathedrals, including Chichester, St Paul's and Westminster.

Their artefacts have been used as props in films, including the Eric Idle-Robbie Coltrane comedy Nuns On The Run, and at Chichester Festival Theatre and the English National Opera.

They are continuing their wholesale business but the shop is going.

Mr Whitaker said: "Most of our business is wholesale and it has become too much hassle running the shop in the town centre, with all its parking and traffic problems."

To fill the gap, the Whitakers have now launched The Natural Health Company which sells wholesale snack foods and soft drinks to colleges, leisure centres, hospitals and businesses around Sussex.

Mr Whitaker said: "It is a complete change for us but it is proving just as enjoyable. It is a sort of 'out with the old, in with the new'. The end may be nigh for the shop but for the snack business, it is a case of 'In the beginning...'."