Sightings got Shropshire twitter users taking to the social media website to share images with others from across the UK who were also enjoying the display.

The lights were first spotted around 9pm in waves of red, yellow, blue and purple, but light pollution made spotting the aurora difficult for many.

The Northern Lights are the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun’s atmosphere. The colours are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The most common is a yellowish-green produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth.

The solar phenomenon is seen frequently in the Arctic Circle, but it can be difficult to predict. The lights were last night visible as far south as Essex and South Wales.

It was last seen so widely across the UK around 20 years ago.