CHILDREN had a narrow escape when Sunday's storms caused a church pinnacle to crash through the roof where they were due to have their Sunday school.

The pinnacle of the tower of St James's Church, Bishampton, was dislodged by the violence of the gales and fell through the roof just over an hour before the six children and their teacher were due to meet.

Church vicar, the Rev David Hassell, was also forced to move his Sunday afternoon church service to Bishampton Village Hall as the storm-damaged church was closed temporarily due to safety concerns.

Mr Hassell said: "It happened early in the morning, at about 8.30am, before we have services, so there was nobody in the church but the masonry has fallen down where the Sunday school meets." It had been due to take place at 9.45am.

He added: "Thank God nobody was hurt and nobody was in the church at the time."

Closed off

He said he was able to contact parishioners to tell them the Sunday school was cancelled and about the service being moved to the village hall.

After safety inspections of the church on Monday and Tuesday, it was decided that services could take place, as normal, from next Sunday onwards.

They would be held in the front part of the church, although the rear of the building, which had suffered the storm damage, had been closed off for the time being, until repair work could be carried out.

The pinnacle that had fallen through the roof - one of four on the church tower - was removed on Tuesday and the roof boarded up.

Despite the savagery of Sunday's storms, Evesham firefighters were called to relatively few incidents.

They had to make safe a damaged roof on a mobile home near Wickhamford and deal with alarms set off by the power cuts.

On Monday, Evesham fire crews were called to Norval Road, South Littleton, after being called by residents whose candle had lit gas from a camping stove they were using while the power was off.

Fortunately, before the resultant fire could get out of control and the firefighters arrived, the fire was put out when the residents smothered it with a damp cloth.