By Trevor Porter

Specialist brewing vessels from Ushers are this week being dismantled ready to be shipped to the other side of the world.

Millions of pounds worth of high tech brewery equipment is being taken out piece by piece to be shipped to North Korea.

Over the past eight years the steel vessels were installed at Ushers' Trowbridge brewery as part of a £6m expansion.

With six additional conical fermenters and a pure yeast culture plant, the brewery was able to produce 500,000 barrels a year and was described by the company's directors as state-of-the-art.

Now, with the town's most famous business brought to a close, bringing to an end 176 years of brewing history, the plant has been sold by owners the Innspired group to Thomas Hardy Holdings

An onward sale via a German agent has resulted in the plant being bought as part of a Korean government project.

Engineering specialists, including a team from Korea, have taken over the brewery's Back Street premises, dismantling the miles of stainless steel pipes connecting fermenters and vessels.

The engineers have been preparing the huge vessels and conical fermenters for transit to Avonmouth docks from where they will be shipped abroad.

Abnormal load specialist Scott Heavy Haulage has been called in to carry the 80 huge loads and from now until the end of November the loads are expected to cause traffic delays.