A poppy field which was forced to close after groups of people ignored signs and caused "irreversible damage" will not reopen to the public this year.

Confirming the news to the Gazette, Rebecca Newman from Wildflower Turf said despite closing off the site Monday night, families have still been breaking in to grab pictures.

"Monday evening the farm manager put up a barricade of hay bales to block off the field so that you can’t really see it from the outside," the office and marketing manager for the Overton site said.

"The next day we wandered down on our lunch breaks and there were two families trying to find a way in through the hedges.

"We told them it was closed but they hung around and entered at a different spot where there is a sign saying 'no access, private land'.

"So they ran down and took a quick photo and ran off again."

This was the second year in a row that the group had opened the fields up to the public.

They were not charging an entry fee and only asked that people make a donation to the Royal British Legion, which around 100 people did.

Which is why Mrs Newman was so sad to see the open area taken advantage of.

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"Obviously word spread like wildfire," she added.

"We didn’t expect the amount of people that came, and as more came, they were roaming onto the rest of the land and onto the field.

"The seeds are our livelihood and they are what we are going to harvest and people were ruining them.

"We put up signs saying keep out of the field but people just kept walking onto the parts of the field that had been trodden down, all so they could have a selfie."

The last straw came when people started being rude to the small group of people trying to patrol the field.

"One lady with two dogs was asked to take her dogs off the site and point blank said no," Mrs Newman said.

"Another man who had walked out into the field just ignored us when we asked him to leave.

"It was just untenable to have that many people on site not doing as we ask."

So despite the fact that the poppies will still be there for a few more weeks before they are harvested next month, the poppy field will not reopen to the public in 2020, with discussions underway as to how they will manage the site if they allow the public back next year.

"We were just trying to do something nice so that people could socially distance and enjoy a day out," she finished.

"It's just heart-wrenching."