An artist has pleaded with thrill seekers to stop leaping from the roof of a pier's historic bell tower.

Faye Whittaker uses the 126-year-old tower on Brighton's Palace Pier as a gallery.

She says the dangerous annual craze is damaging the ornate roof tiles and destroying part of the city's heritage.

For the past 16 years she has seen daredevils clambering up the side of her shop and hurling themselves from the roof.

Last week The Argus reported how labourer James Clarke, 18, performed double somersaults as he threw himself into the sea from Miss Whittaker's shop, nicknamed the smallest gallery in the English Channel.

Faye, 49, of Davigdor Road, Hove, noticed the first jumpers of the season about three weeks ago.

She said: "It starts as soon as hot weather comes and it's warm enough to jump in the sea. They use the east side of the pier because there are no groynes there.

"You can shout all you want but they don't stop. I don't notice them at first because I am at the front serving customers but they climb up the railings and on to the roof.

"It's a part of Brighton's heritage - it's quite sad really."

The bell towers were put up at the entrance to the chain pier in 1880, which was the first of its kind in England when it was built in 1823.

The pier was destroyed in a storm in 1896 but the towers were saved and moved to the new Palace Pier.

Miss Whittaker, who draws and sells Edwardian-style prints, said she was willing to replace the damaged tiles herself as a last resort to save the tower. She has asked pier owner the Noble Organisation to put a stop to the craze, which is known as tombstoning.

She said: "They have told me they can't really do much about it but I don't think they are trying hard enough.

"If they can ban dogs and bikes, why can't they stop this?"

David Biesterfield, one of the directors of the Noble Organisation, said signs had been put up telling people not to jump.

He said: "We do take all responsible steps to discourage people from jumping. The circumference of the pier is about a mile and we cannot have security guards all the way round to prevent people jumping.

"Short of closing the pier and not letting anybody on it or building barriers so high the vast majority of people could not gaze over at the sea, we are limited as to what we can do."

He said they could press charges if there was clear evidence showing the pier being damaged.

Three years ago thrill seekers began jumping 50ft from the top of the pier's helter-skelter.

Police and coastguards appealed for them to stop but the dangerous craze continued into summer 2004 when a man his 20s was knocked unconscious after diving from the roof of a building.

A teenage boy suffered back and neck injuries when he jumped from the pier last August.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "It is only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt.

"Tombstoning is a horrible but appropriate name for something so deadly."