BROTHERS Mark and Paul Alder are counting the cost after their prized BMW and Porsche cars were crushed under large chunks of masonry when a wall toppled over a few feet from their Marlborough home.

Postman Paul, and his brother Mark, a customer services co-ordinator for a mail order firm, heard a tremendous rumble close to their home at Five Alls Cottage, on the corner of Plume of Feathers Lane and London Road.

Mark said: "I was just getting up to go to work when I heard this loud crash. I thought it was a lorry on the London Road because they often make a lot of noise."

Men were working on the conversion of the former Five Alls public house when the wall collapsed at 8am last Wednesday.

Mark said one theory under investigation was that the recent heavy rain had softened the foundations of the wall causing it to topple.

He said his F registration 5 Series BMW had been his pride and joy and was worth about £3,000.

Paul bought his 1981 X registered Porsche 924S almost a year ago and had been spending a lot of his spare time restoring it.

Both cars were so extensively damaged it is believed they will be written off by insurers.