The spire of St Thomas' Church in Wells crashed to the ground after it was brought down by heavy winds.

Footage showed the moment the spire wobbled and then toppled from the church, which was constructed in 1857.

Nobody was hurt, said the church's vicar, the Rev Claire Towns.

"We were all terribly shocked, the building has been up since the late 1800s and the spire here can be seen from quite a long way away. It's quite a symbol around our community so we're just really shocked that this happened," she told Sky News.

"But equally we're feeling very thankful that nobody was hurt or even worse killed."

She said if the wind had been blowing in the other direction the spire would have fallen on to the roof of the Grade II listed building.

She described the moment she saw the spire tumble, saying: "We were bracing ourselves as were the rest of the southwest for terrible winds today and sure enough they arrived mid-morning.

"I was more concerned about the trees that surround the vicarage garden than I was about the church, because I thought to myself well it's been here since Victorian times, it must have seen some weather since then.

"And then literally a couple of minutes later I took a call from the police asking if I would come and look at the spire and 'should it look like that ' and I went 'certainly not'.

"Then within 10 minutes of that conversation with the police, I was upstairs at the time looking out the window and I saw the top of the spire and the weather vane come crashing down. It all happened so quickly, all in the space of 20 minutes or so."

She said she hoped the spire would be restored but did not have an estimate of how much it might cost.

Storm Eunice has brought record-breaking gusts of wind to the UK as millions of people were urged to stay at home for the day.

Thousands of homes have been left without power while flights, trains and ferry services have been suspended and roads, schools and businesses have shut.