Two houses were hit by lighting in Ashford during heavy storms last night.

The strikes at Hunter Road, Willesborough, blew out power sockets and started several small fires.

Fire crews were called out to the scene just after 9.10am.

Colin Blomfield, from nearby Church Road in Sevington, had witnessed the storm quickly build up shortly before 9pm and took the dramatic pictures shown here.

Mr Blomfield, a 39-year-old IT consultant, said; “We just had a barbecue and suddenly we felt a wall of hot wind. That was the first sign of the storm.

“The sky changed colour rapidly, from blue to red to black. There were also lots of high speed spinning clouds.

“Then the rain came down in Biblical proportions. Noah would have been in his element.

“That storm initially went on for an hour an a half, it calmed down but kept raining and kicked off again at about 12.30am. Then it raged on again until 4am and it stopped me sleeping.

“It was all very strange.”

Several parts of Kent were battered by the violent weather.

A house roof caught fire after being struck by lightning in Maidstone Road, Lenham.

Firefighters used breathing apparatus, two hose reel jets and a main jet to put out the flames.

Another house roof caught fire in Whitstable, while a house went ablaze in Sittingbourne and a tree fell on a parked vehicle in Gravesend.