A couple were getting ready for bed when flames engulfed their home last night.

The blaze had spread from a neighbouring shed to the roof of their mid-terrace home in Dover Street Mews, Maidstone.

Thirteen firefighters spent more than an hour tackling it after being called to the property at 9pm.

Forty percent of the roof was destroyed their ceiling collapsed and two windows and large sections of the side of the property were severely damaged.

The owner, who lives with his wife and two dogs, said: "If we had gone to bed half an hour earlier we wouldn't have know there was a fire.

"I have no idea what caused it. We have just been trying to clean up because the ceiling came down.

"We heard the bang at around 8.30pm and that was the window cracking. We thought it was someone in the house.

"I've never had a fire before so it was just panic and I rang 999. I went to open one of the windows in one of the rooms and within five seconds the smoke got me and I started coughing.

"I had to stay at the hotel at the Tickled Trout last night. I don't know where we will stay tonight."

No one was injured and the cause of the fire is not yet known although one neighbour believed a discarded cigarette could be to blame. Kent Police was not called.

Neighbour Anna Abraham, a 48-year-old nurse and mother-of-two, returned home at 11.30pm from a church prayer session to find her garden destroyed by the blaze.

She said: "My neighbour was banging on the door because she thought we might have been in the house.

"She said there were three fire engines and she is still in shock."

Three crews were called to the scene, off Tonbridge Road, and left just before 11pm.