For the inmates and their lawyers, there was a sense of disbelief that a life's work was nearing an end.
The work of installing the overhead line was nearing an end.
As the work neared completion, the railway was progressively dismantled.
Like the search for remains, the work to shore up a 70-foot-high retaining wall that encompasses the site is nearing its final stages.
His work is nearing a conclusion, he has informed me.
The work is nearing its completion and the structure is scheduled to be commissioned during 2007.
But as the work nears completion, that appears to have happened.
As work neared completion in 1877, the huts were removed and the filling of the reservoir began.
The canal is currently being restored, with the work on one of the locks nearing completion.
It was hard not to feel for a man who was facing death just as his life's work neared completion.