Homes across Southampton were left without electricity tonight following a fire at a sub-station. 

The power cut was caused by a blaze at the Southern Electric sub-station on Western Esplanade at 10.15pm, although the power cut did not affect all places immediately. 

In the city centre, many homes and businesses - including the Eastern docks - had power restored by 11.25pm although the outage affected many parts of the city. 

Some residents only experienced a brief flicker while others were without electricity for much longer. 

Southern Electric said they expected engineers to have power fully restored by 1am. 

The outage meant large parts of the city were without street and traffic lights, with residents taking to the streets to catch a glimpse of the city in complete darkness. 

Many more took to Twitter to talk about the power cut, with the topic becoming one of the site's trending topics due to the large number of people discussing it.