Roy Harkness said redundancy letters have been sent to all staff

Roy Harkness, union convener at Appledore Shipbuilders, said receivers will go into the 148-year-old complex in north Devon on Wednesday morning to wind up the business.

The receivers, Tenon Recovery, spent the day in meetings with union representatives and the workforce.

Workers started demonstrating outside the yard on Sunday following a meeting with chairman John Langham on Friday, and many are expected to be there on Wednesday.

We had to tell every man and woman at the yard they have been made redundant from this afternoon Roy Harkness, union convenor

The chairman has said there was no option but to call in the receivers.

The yard completed its last ship nearly a month ago.

The company, which had no work in hand, said it lost �1.3m last year and lost a further �1.9m in the first half of this year.

But Mr Harkness said on Tuesday night he believed there was "a silver lining".

"We are hoping that from the ashes should be resurrected a good, profitable business," he said.

"We had to tell every man and woman at the yard they have been made redundant from this afternoon.

"The yard has closed down. No prospective buyer is going to take on a company so heavily in debt," he said.

"The redundancy notices have been sent by first class post and will be dropping through their letterboxes."

'Every assistance'

He said the receivers would have every assistance from the workforce when they entered the yard on Wednesday morning.

"Hopefully, working with the unions and a future owner, we shall have good prospects," he said.

He said members of the Appledore workforce would meet national union officials attending the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth.

Appledore Shipbuilders was founded in 1855 and the firm had one of the biggest enclosed ship-building factories in Britain in the 1960s, building hundreds of vessels.

The yard, based on the River Torridge, has built more than 350 ships, including naval fishery protection vessels, trawlers, passenger-vehicle ferries, dredgers and bulk carriers.