The Havelock Arms in Washington has a ghost story built around a former landlord known to regulars and staff simply as Long John, a nickname presumably tied to his height, who is said to have run the pub always dressed in a smart waistcoat and to have taken genuine, evident pride in the establishment he spent his working life managing. Since his death, he is said to return to the pub in the quiet hours after closing, taking what amounts to a final evening drink at his own old bar, exactly as he would have done countless times during his years actually running the place.
This follows a pattern of story genuinely very similar to the Charlie legend told about the Albion Inn across the river in Bill Quay, both hauntings built around the same essentially warm, affectionate premise: a landlord too attached to his own bar to leave it fully behind, even after death has technically ended his working career.
As with that closely comparable story, no independent record survives anywhere to confirm Long John's actual real name, the dates of his life, or his cause of death, and the tale rests entirely on secondhand staff and regular testimony rather than on any documented history that could be checked. It nonetheless fits a recognisable and genuinely widespread North East pub tradition, and it continues to be told at the Havelock Arms today as an affectionate piece of local colour rather than as any source of fear, Long John's ghost welcomed rather than dreaded by the regulars who share his old bar.
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