OXFORD city centre music shop Russell Acott is considering moving out of town and selling its High Street shop to a top chain of restaurants and bars.

The shop, which has sold sheet music, records, musical instruments, radios and other electrical music equipment at the premises since the 1950s, is planning to move out of town.

All Bar One, a chain of 36 rest-aurants-cum-bars run by Bass, is applying to open up in the old-fashioned premises.

The owner of Russell Acott, Graham Ansell, told the Oxford Mail: "We have an offer on the table. We don't yet know if it is one we can't refuse.

"We are considering moving out of town because it's becoming so hard for people to come into town these days."

A spokesman for All Bar One, based in Islington, London, told the Oxford Mail: "Our bars and restaurants are a little like Brown's, which Bass has now bought out.

"They serve coffee throughout the day and have blackboard menus. We use classic pastel colours, station clocks, and sometimes chairs from churches to go with refectory tables."

All Bar One opened its first restaurant in Sutton, Surrey, in 1995. Since then it has opened outside London in Bath, Bristol, Birmingham, Cambridge, Sheffield, Leeds, and Edinburgh.

Russell Acott, which employs 25 people, was founded in 1811 but moved to its present premises shortly after the Second World War.

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