in May last year in a bid to speed up the process.

The grade II-listed Congleton United Reformed Church in Cheshire has been a place of worship on Antrobus Street for nearly 150 years, but was now too large for the congregation to maintain.Malpas Community Church will also close its doors, with details of its final service set to be announced soon according to a post on social media.

Both decisions had been made "very reluctantly", Reverend Murray George said. He added it was still early days in the sale process and the buildings had not yet been put on the market.The decision to leave the building in Congleton was made at the end of March following a long period of deliberation, he said, and years of trying to maintain and develop the venue."It is a very big church, that's Grade II listed, and it's just become too big and too expensive for the current congregation," Mr George said.

Church leaders were now looking for other venues where they could come together for worship, he said.A spokesperson for Malpas Community Church said it was "with deep sadness" that they were announcing its closure.

"The church congregation has been dwindling for many years now and are now at the point of an unviable congregation," they said in a statement posted on social media.

The building would be sold, they said, and hall hire would cease from 23 May.Canterbury Archaeological Trust, which is leading the work, said it expected to find deposits from Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval eras.

Dover District Council (DDC) has been awardedto transform the brownfield site on Bench Street.

Initial work, drilling bole holes to take core samples, started last week.The Dover Beacon project aims to regenerate an area of the town centre, formerly home to "derelict, eyesore buildings", says the council.