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Writing of haunted pubs in his study of British ghost beliefs, historian Owen Davies remarks: “There are relatively few instances prior to the twentieth century… It is possible that those who recorded stories of ghosts thought such tales were not credible and saw them as belonging to the superstition of the people or caused by alcoholic excess.” (The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts, 2007).

Whatever the reasons for their relatively late appearance in national ghostlore, there is certainly no shortage of UK pubs claiming to be haunted today. Serious psychical researchers have long considered that stories of pub hauntings should be approached critic­ally.