The air was thick with smoke as 31 processions wound their way around the streets of Lewes last night, watched by 80,000 people.

This year's Bonfire Night celebrations went off in awesome style, as if to make up for last year's difficulties following the autumn floods. Last night the crowds were bigger than ever.

Special trains were laid on to ferry thousands of people into the town from across Sussex. A 30ft effigy of Osama bin Laden, made of papier mache and chicken wire over a wooden frame, was the centrepiece of Cliffe Bonfire Society's traditional display.

It showed bin Laden sitting on a toilet with an American eagle clawing at his back and the figure was one of the most popular displays.

Mike John, 28, travelled by train from Newhaven to see the spectacle. He said: "This is the first time I've been and it's truly incredible. I've never seen anything like it in this country or abroad."

The November 5 celebrations have been marked in Lewes since 1606, a year after the Gunpowder Plot when Guy Fawkes' plan to blow up Parliament, kill the king and install a Catholic monarch was foiled.

Last night's processions began with all five societies paying their respects to the town's war dead by laying a wreath at the war memorial on the High Street.

The celebrations then got under way with a spectacle of sights, sounds and smells.

The processions of Zulu warriors -with 4ft high multi-coloured feather head-dresses - Vikings, Cavaliers and Roundheads, Scots pipers and drummers, were lit by burning torches, marine flares and fireworks.

Firecrackers were let off in the street, adding to the cacophony created by marching brass bands, jazz bands and the roars and chants of the crowd.

May Hodson, of Kemp Town, Brighton, said: "It's just awesome."

The celebrations attracted crowds 12 deep on the narrow pavements. The evening was rounded off with a finale of five bonfire displays dotted around the town and organised by five main societies from the town - Cliffe, Commercial Square, South Street, Waterloo and Lewes Borough - who battle it out to provide the best show every year.

Superintendent Simon Parr, in charge of policing at Lewes, said fine weather attracted more people.

Ambulance staff treated 21 casualties, mainly for minor burns, and one person was arrested for being drunk and disorderly.

Mr Parr said about 10,000 travelled into the town from Brighton and Eastbourne and he was disappointed they ignored advice to stay away.

Elsewhere in Sussex, more than 4,000 people turned up at Withdean Stadium in Brighton for a spectacular firework show organised by Brighton Lions Club.

The show was delayed for half an hour due to the numbers of people arriving at the stadium.

Brighton Lions Club secretary Bruce Nunn said: "It was very successful. I think everybody had a good night out. "We spent about £6,000 on fireworks and the display lasted around 45 minutes."

Crowds flocked to Shoreham Beach for a procession to the Church of the Good Shepherd to see fireworks, a bonfire and live music.

Scores of people stared to the skies in Lindfield as fireworks lit up the heavens.

A torch-lit procession through the streets culminated with a spectacular bonfire and firework display at the Common.

Mother Jane Willis said: "It was tremendous, the fireworks were the best yet. It was a good atmosphere and I think people came from outside the village."

At Eastbourne, a ton of fireworks were fired from an island in a five-acre lake.

More than 2,000 people watched the spectacular reflections on the lake as the pyrotechnics shot over the Eastbourne Miniature Steam Railway Adventure Park in Lottbridge Drove.

More than £3,000 were being donated to the Mustard Seed Relief Missions, an Eastbourne-based charity that sends humanitarian aid to the Balkans and the Ukraine.