While most seaside towns are firmly into their winter hibernation, Brighton flaunted convention with a Winter Solstice festival of fire and music.

Pillars of flames soared into the air and a giant clock was set ablaze on the beach as the crowd of 20,000 cheered on the Burning the Clocks parade.

Carnival drummers led over 1,000 people from the Pavilion through the city to the seafront. A separate parade wound its way from the Marina.

Children proudly carried more than 600 hand-made lanterns in the shape of clocks to Madeira Drive.

They bobbed in the air alongside weird and wonderful illuminated features including a peacock, an hourglass, a snake and a blazing sun.

The Marina procession, inspired by the Moon, was led by a glowing blue figure while the Pavilion crowd symbolised the sun, bearing aloft a giant red and orange lantern of a woman carrying a sphere.

Once at the meeting point the drummers erupted into party beats and the glowing clocks were piled on to two towering bonfires.

A dazzling display of fireworks erupted into the pitch black sky to a chorus of oohs and ahs, culminating with the burning of the lantern clocks.

The cheering crowds were delighted to welcome back the celebration, which was cancelled last year due to lack of funds.

While the pagan symbolism suggests the festival stretches back into the mists of time, in fact it was started just six years ago.

It is organised by Brighton-based community arts group Same Sky and forms the festive focus of Brighton & Hove City Council's Winter Festival, supported by the Where Else campaign.

Same Sky general manager Iain Cartwright said: "We hope it's something that will continue forever.

"It is about celebrating or commiserating the year and seeing in the change of the seasons. The idea is you burn the clocks to signify throwing out the old and bringing in the new."