The London building firm traces its history as far back as 1882 and specialised in high-end contracting building London landmarks like the Old Bailey and Bank of England.

HWA built a formidable reputation as a specialist in the high-end residential and commercial market covering refurbishment and new build and achieved a £90m turnover.

A former employee told the Enquirer: “All the workforce were made redundant on Friday.

“Its been a very sad week.”

He added: “There were several problems – the turnover fell sharply from around £90m to £60m in the course of two years and existing overheads were probably carried too long.

“There were also a couple of loss-making projects which hit the firm hard,” he told the Enquirer.

In February this year private equity company Privet Capital injected cash into the business for a majority stake holding.

The HWA directors are understood to have had an uneasy relationship with the new backers.

Administrators from KPMG are handling the affairs of the Mayfair based company, which employed around 150 professional staff and 25 skilled operatives.

The firm’s managing director Bob Cole and then finance director Nigel Driver led a management buyout of HWA in 2002 from John Laing after Ray O’Rourke had already scooped the main Laing contracting business for £1.