About 1,750 homes in Marlborough experienced power cuts for almost two hours last night with the west half of the town left without electricity from 9.40pm to 11.35 when Scottish and Southern Electricity engineers restored the power.

The east side of the town suffered a series of short power-loss blips which affected computers, alarm clocks and alarm systems.

The High Street, River Park and Kingsbury Street were left without any power until engineers were able to reconnect it at about 11.35pm.

A spokeswoman for SSE said: “We had a fault on a high voltage line at about 9.40pm.

“It affected around 1,750 customers and engineers were dispatched and the supply was restored by 11.35.”