ABSEILING experts have been in action some 90ft above Totnes — making sure the town's crumbling church bell tower does not remain a health hazard.

Part of the town centre churchyard at St Mary's Church has been sealed off for almost a month after small pieces of masonry started falling from the 500-year-old church tower.

Exeter-based conservators with a head for heights abseiled down the tower a week ago to take a look at just how badly off the masonry is around the window tracery high up the tower.

They returned to put up netting around the window to ensure that no more bits of the tower or the window plummet to the ground.

Philip Scorer and Geoff Gale used ropes to support themselves as they fixed the almost invisible netting around the window.

Mr Scorer revealed some of the masonry around the window was 'heavily eroded'.

They spent most of the day working on the tower so the churchyard below can be re-opened and the bell ringers can be allowed back in.

But it could be at least two years before the church has the cash to do the work on the tower window.

When the masonry fell three weeks ago it narrowly missed a dog walker.

Mr Scorer said: "The belfry tracery window is carved from Beer stone, a soft white limestone from Beer. The masonry has been eroded severely from a mixture of harsh weather and atmospheric pollution. Although not in imminent danger of collapse, the window will need to be repaired at some point."

It is hoped to start the £10,000 project to restore the church's statues this summer, explained churchwarden Peter Rogers.

The church is looking at doing the work to the window at the same time as work is done to repair the tower's stonework when expensive scaffolding can been set up for both jobs — at a cost of almost £500,000.

The church will have to look for various pots of grant money to pay for the work and that is likely to take at least two years, Mr Rogers added.

It is feared that the work on the tower is bound to delay ambitious church plans to re-shape the interior of the building to make it more community friendly.