AFTER 80 years of standing determinedly on the Suffolk coast, a family home was today demolished before being committed to the sea by nature.

The cliff-top home in Easton Bavents could no longer fight the environment and was pulled down before its inevitable descent towards the beach below.

For decades coastal erosion has threateningly crept towards the doorstep of the 1930s two-storey detached, named Thursley after its designer’s home village in Surrey.

Siblings Andrew Thrale and Sally Mitchell looked on wistfully as the building that served as holiday home to four generations of their family was reduced to rubble.