The Cricketers on Black Lion Street is reputed to be the oldest pub in Brighton, with a history said to go back to 1547. Graham Greene is said to have drunk here while writing Brighton Rock, which gives the building a literary gloss that ghost-tour writers like to use.
The darker legend concerns Robert D'Onston Stephenson, one of the many men put forward over the years as a possible Jack the Ripper, who is said to have lodged at the Cricketers in 1888. His spirit is reputed to linger. That connects a famous murder mystery to the pub, but the haunting itself is a reputation rather than a documented sighting of any named person.
The better-described activity is a 1990s run of classic poltergeist behaviour: glasses falling, doors slamming and footsteps on the stairs, together with a pale figure in a long black cloak that more than one manager is said to have seen. The grey nun of the Lanes is also said to have drifted past outside. All of this comes from a Brighton walking-tour company's write-up, with no dates or names for the managers, so it is best treated as local pub lore.
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