A father and son from the Lizard Peninsula have captured on film a spectacular landslide at a Cornish beach.

Matt Holyer and his dad David had been at Pentreath, on the coast between Lizard Point and Kynance Cove, when the dramatic moment unfolded on Monday.

The landslip had actually first started on Saturday afternoon, before gradually worsening over the course of the weekend, as a result of heavy rainfall on both Saturday and Sunday.

It then reached tipping point on Monday, when a huge portion of the cliff and the land above fell onto the beach below.

David was on a walk along the coastline when he spotted the original slide on Saturday.

Matt said: "He said it looked very fresh; he thought maybe half an hour before he got there, but obviously doesn't know for sure.

"Before Saturday neither of us had been there for at least a week and hadn't spotted anything unusual."

The pair went back to the site for their daily exercise over the following two days and witnessed "continuous small falls" in that area on both occasions, but nothing to the extent of what would unfold on Monday.

"It was on the second day that we noticed the cracks at the top of the cliff. There was a lot of rain on the Saturday and Sunday and the water was actually running down a crack at the top of the cliff and then coming out lower down the cliff – that's what triggered the main fall on the final day.

"We were only ever there for two to three hour's each day at most; we were very luck to see it," said Matt, who actually studied geology at Camborne School of Mines, so to witness a natural phenomenon like that was a life's ambition.

"It was still far more luck and perseverance that allowed us to see it," he added.

"My late grandfather, Rev Vincent Holyer, was also an avid mineral collector and spent quite a lot of his spare time collecting samples exactly where the cliff collapsed, so he would have loved to have seen this, and would be down there now to see what he could find!"

Mesh barriers and signs have been put up warning people to stay away. 

In a comment on the Lizard Facebook page, the Lizard National Trust has said: "Further mesh barriers and signage will be installed by Cornwall Council, in addition to that erected yesterday.

"The geologist expects that more material will go, due to the weight of the saturated ground in the hollow above the fresh face.

"Please bypass the area on one of the higher paths. The coastpath remains open and the higher paths safe to use."