The Druid's Head stands in Market Street in the Lanes. The first record of the pub dates from 1510, though nobody knows when the building was actually put up, and its cellars are thought to date to around 1610. Local writers describe it as the oldest pub in Brighton, which is a claim rather than a proven fact.
Brighton ghost writers call it the most haunted pub in the city, with at least two resident ghosts and, by their count, more than a hundred recorded instances of poltergeist activity. The reports are of the familiar kind: bottles that slide along shelves, glasses that travel across the bar, and a shadowy figure glimpsed from the corner of the eye that has gone by the time you turn. One of the two ghosts is described as a hooded figure, said to be a smuggler who died on the cellar steps. A lady in red in the main bar is the other.
The pub is also tied into a story that it was built beside a druidic stone circle, which explains the name for the tellers. That detail is a pub legend with no archaeology offered behind it, and the name may simply be a Georgian or Victorian sign. The ghost count is a tour-company and local-journalism figure, not a logged investigation, so the entry rests on tradition and repeated retelling rather than on named witnesses.
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