Devon County Council and the police have closed a road after a landslip sent tons of earth plunging more than 50ft to the beach below.

The major cliff fall, which happened just feet from a home in Beacon Road, Kingswear, on part of the South Devon coastal path, took a 40ft sycamore tree from the garden with it.

Resident Gerry Harrison found his tree had disappeared along with part of his cliffside land less than 30ft from his house on Sunday morning.

'It was there one day and gone the next,' said Mr Harrison who fears part of Beacon Road near his home has now been undermined.

Mr Harrison, who has lived at the clifftop house for 17 years, said there had been some four landslips along that part of the coast over the last 10 years or so but Saturday night's was the largest.

'It was a bit frightening to say the least. If anyone had been on the beach below they would have been buried under a load of mud. It all just went straight down.'

The cliff is directly above the controversial privately owned Lighthouse beach which has been at the centre of a major row for the last year over public access.

Kingswear parish councillors are currently negotiating with beach owner David Southwick to find a way of reopening the beach without having to go to a costly public inquiry over whether it can be declared a village green.

The landslip sent debris plummeting to within yards of the lighthouse.

Mr Harrison fears the underpinning for a section of the road may have fallen in the landslip which has taken all the earth with it – exposing bare rock.

Mr Harrison said that the large sycamore tree had only been topped the week before so that a neighbour behind him would have a better view of the river mouth. Now it is gone altogether.

He added: 'I have had a man in who is a specialist in geological surveys who has said I may have to lose a yard or so of my garden but he doubts very much if anything more will fall off.

'But you cannot tell with the weather conditions that we have been having.'