AFTER 10 years of restoration, a church dubbed the oldest building in Brighton is almost back to its old self.

St Nicholas’ Church in the heart of the city has been undergoing a massive conservation project for a decade and the finish line is in touching distance.

Conservationists Stig Evans and Greg Howarth have been working on the walls and believe they are just weeks away from finishing what they started in 2005.

Mr Evans said: “We started in the chapel and now we’re working on the west wall because it had fallen foul to the weather.

“It had water damage from a leaking roof from the tower, which isn’t surprising seeing as it’s a medieval tower.

“It’s the oldest building in Brighton and has a font there that is about 1,000 years old.

“The west wall had a lot of flaking paint, so it’s been about conserving what’s left of that.

“We started that about six weeks ago and we’ve for about four weeks to go hopefully, the whole project should have taken about three months start-to-finish.”

The pair have not been in every day, but have been working on projects on and off for the 10 years.

Mr Evans added: “When we first got in there the Ladies Chapel ceiling was collapsing and parts of the building was completely covered in three or four layers of thick, brown varnish.

“You couldn’t see the decoration behind it, so we had to remove that varnish.

“When you consider how many candles are burned in the church, that build-up is inevitable.

“We never paint over any original work.

“What we do is restore anything that’s fallen off, for example, but a lot of it is just removing what’s covered it up.

“Lots and lots of grime has been removed and it’s made a huge difference, it looks much better.

“Our job is to keep the artist’s original intent and improving areas lost to bad weather or decay, so we have to respect the original work and conserve it. That’s imperative This should be the last area we need to work on, but you can never tell.

“Brighton is susceptible to the weather with the strong south-westerlies crashing into the church, but once the work is done, it should hopefully be a permanent fixture for a number of years.”

There is no celebration planned to mark the end of the work as of yet, but Mr Evans said he will kick back with a few pints of Harveys.