A COUPLE who have converted a rundown 19th-century gothic church into their dream home have achieved another landmark – and welcomed their first bed and breakfast guests.

Sean and Debs Kennedy-Tallis spent just under £500,000 turning the dilapidated St Paul’s Church, in Denholme, into a four-bedroom house for themselves.

Now valued at between £950,000 and £1m, they had bought the building in its original damaged state for just £85,000 at auction in September, 2017.

The couple got to work on realising their vision and lived in a caravan in the church grounds during the building work, which they mostly completed themselves.

Their mammoth restoration project featured on the BBC One programme, Homes Under the Hammer.

"It’s a lovely place," says Debs.

"We’re quite excited by it and it was nice to get the conversion done by New Year’s Eve for our first B&B guests.

"We did the project in stages, and then we had a couple of open days before Christmas for people to have a look around."

The couple hope to carry out conversion work on the church’s bell tower in the future.

The Grade II-listed church was built in 1846 and closed in 1999 due to dry rot.

It remained untouched until Sean and Debs took on their venture.

The church also features a graveyard, which has been tidied up as part of the project.

Sean said he and Debs, who got married during the restoration work, worked well as a team. He added: "It never got too stressful. We knew we just had to put 100 per cent into it. We had a few hiccups but nothing that was ever going to put us off."

Homes Under the Hammer paid an initial visit to the church just weeks after the couple had bought it.

Presenter Martin Roberts described the church as "a bit broken but majestic all the same".

Sean said the building was "on its knees" when he and Debs acquired it.

"It was such a beautiful building in such a sad state," he added.

"We were told that the roof was in such a bad way that if we had had another bad winter we would have lost the building. So we got it just in time. First, we had to repair and reinforce the roof."

For more about the project, visit the Restoration and Conversion of the Church of St Paul Denholme Facebook page.