IT’S almost last orders at a popular Boscombe pub after its owners sold the venue to a property company.

The Sir Percy Florence Shelley is to close for the last time on Sunday, May 14.

It is one of 45 pubs that were put on the market almost a year ago by national chain JD Wetherspoon.

At the time, the company said it was hoping that many of the pubs would be snapped up as going concerns.

But a Wetherspoon spokesman said the Sir Percy Florence Shelley had been sold to Bournemouth-based Culverdene Properties Limited.

A spokesman said: “The final day is May 14.

“The pub has been sold to Culverdene Properties Limited.

“All staff at the pub will remain with Wetherspoon, so no one is losing their job as a result of the pub being sold.”

Wetherspoon acknowledged last year that customers would be disappointed by its decision to sell properties.

But it said it had to make commercial decisions.

The pub has been a key part of Boscombe’s social scene and is a popular watering hole with visiting football fans heading for AFC Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium.

The Percy Florence Shelley opened in 1998 and was named after the distinguished local resident who lived at nearby Shelley Manor. Sir Percy was the son of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Frankenstein author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

The pub’s premises was originally the entrance and foyer of the Carlton Super Cinema, a 1931 building which was the sister of Bournemouth’s ABC. The cinema auditorium was demolished in the early 2000s.

Boscombe West councillor Chris Wakefield remembered the premises as a shoe shop with a nightclub above.

“The Sir Percy Florence Shelley has been a very popular establishment over the years and there’s a lot of history with regard to the building,” he said.

“It’s been part of my life for many years, when it was a nightclub and later as the Percy Shelley.

“I’ll certainly miss the breakfasts in there, that’s for sure. It’s a sad loss.”

On the pub’s Facebook page, one regular said: “I am so sad my local is going. I will miss it loads.

“Boscombe needs that pub. I was there from the start. A tragedy.”