College staff have paid tribute to a former student who died in a climbing accident.

Lydia Press, 24, from Edenbridge, was killed in the French Alps on Friday when she fell 1,300ft after slipping on ice near the summit of the Tour Ronde, a peak in the Mont Blanc massif, above Chamonix.

Professor Bernard Silverman, master of St Peter’s College, Oxford, said staff and students were sorry to hear of Ms Press’ death.

He said: “Lydia was a student of Earth Sciences at St Peter’s College from 2003-07 and graduated last summer.

“On behalf of the whole college community, I want to express our great sadness at her untimely death.

"Our condolences and thoughts are very much with her family and friends at this sad time.”

Ms Press, an experienced climber, was with her boyfriend, Arnaud Viel, 26, a Frenchman who is a former student at Imperial College, London.

Mr Viel, who comes from Rennes but lives in the UK, was taken to hospital in Chamonix with leg injuries.

A police spokesman said the pair were roped together as they ascended the 12,460ft mountain last Friday in good conditions.

Ms Press graduated from St Peter’s College with a degree in environmental geochemistry and was a former president of the university’s mountaineering club.

Her parents, Nigel Press and Julia Corfe, and her older sister, Naomi, were planning on Monday to travel to Chamonix where Ms Press had been staying.