NOT in Sunday best, but wearing hard hats and dusty jeans, workmen are completing renovations at one Preston building site which has a deep religious significance.

One of the oldest churches in the area, thought to have originally been built from wattle and daub, is being updated for the 21st century.

Painters are scaling the scaffolding inside as they restore the ceiling of Preston's new minster in the Victorian Gothic revival style.

This radical face-lift will see tourists, workers and shoppers rubbing shoulders with community groups, harking back to bygone times when church-goers met to discuss local issues.

St John's is steeped in history and was even mentioned in the Domesday book as far back as the 11th century.

Parishioners, however, will not be able to pull up a pew, when the church re-opens on Saturday, June 7, as the Victorian seats have been removed from the church to make way for a versatile space.

The grade II listed building will host conferences, musical events and wedding receptions and become a community meeting place.

Canon Martyn Griffiths, vicar of St John's, said: "It's the hope of church folk that the style of Minster may help various religious traditions to work together fruitfully as a community resource."

This modern attitude would probably not sit well with Prestonians past.

Joseph Livesey, of Walton-le-Dale and founder of the Temperence movement, would no doubt turn in his grave at the prospect of merry-makers raising a toast to newly weds.

Livesey had a cheese shop down the road from St John's used by the Temperence Society which favoured abstinence from alcohol.

Built between 1853 and 1858, by Shellard, the current St John's is the fifth place of worship on the site which dates back to the first little wooden parish of 'priest town', where Preston is thought to have taken its name.

Throughout the renovations, an archeologist has been on site to make sure any relics found, were properly handled.

When the York stone floor was laid, workmen discovered a perfectly preserved skeleton which has been examined and reverently laid back down.

Two offices to rent are located either side of the West Wall Mural painted in 1956 by Hans Freibush in commemoration of the 1952 Guild.

The minster is entering a new chapter, with renovations to the tune of nearly £2million, from grants and donations, enabling underfloor heating and a floodlit spire -- the highest point in the city.

Plans are afoot to develop the Stoneygate side of the churchyard into a public park, but £50, 000 is still needed to put the finishing touches to the building.

To help call treasurer of Parish Prospect Preston, Christopher Ratcliff on 258427.