Residents across Oxfordshire were shaken up yesterday by the biggest earthquake to hit the country in the past 24 years.

The tremor hit at about 1am and measured 5.2 on the Richter scale.

The earthquake's epicentre was near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, but the effects were felt 144 miles away in Oxford, Abingdon, Bicester and Watlington.

And it spooked animals across the county, including leopards and wolves at Cotswold Wildlife Park.

The largest amount of damage was in Banbury, where part of a stone cross on the roof of St Leonard's Church broke off.

The Rev Mark Charmley said: "The quake toppled the cross from the top of the roof and damaged tiles on its way down."

Green city councillor Craig Simmons, who lives in Magdalen Road, East Oxford, said: "About 20 years ago I worked outside Tokyo in Japan and experienced a number of small earthquakes and their aftershocks so I knew immediately it was an earthquake and told my wife Elise. I was brushing my teeth before bed and the bathroom floor started to shake - it lasted for about 15 seconds."

Jane Darke, 64, of Edgeway Road, Marston, said the timber-framed house she shares with husband Roy started shaking.

She said: "Roy was asleep but I was up and could feel the whole house shaking.

"I was worried because of the way the house had been built but it turned out there wasn't any damage."

Chris Green, 24, a birdkeeper at Cotswold Wildlife Park, near Burford, said wolves and leopards at the park were still displaying unusual behaviour hours later.

He said: "They were all roaring and howling and behaving in a very unusual way. I live on the site and keep a few canaries and finches and they were jumping about when the quake happened."

The British Geological Survey initially gave the magnitude for the 12.56am earthquake as 5.3 on the Richter scale but later estimated it was closer to 5.2.

A spokesman for Oxfordshire Fire Service said they received no emergency calls but Humberside fire service took 200 about collapsed chimneys and damaged roofs.

The BGS records about 200 earthquakes in the UK each year - an eighth of which can be felt by residents.

Earthquakes of this size occur in the mainland UK about every 30 years but are more common in offshore areas.

Yesterday's quake is the largest since 1984, when an earthquake measuring 5.4 shook the Lleyn Peninsula of north Wales and was widely felt across England and Wales.