The Seven Stars on King Street is small enough that its own regulars joke it should really be called the Seven Seats, but its size has not stopped it acquiring one of the more affectionately told ghost stories in Derby. Unlike many pub hauntings that stay nameless, this one has a name: George, a presence regulars talk about the way they might talk about any other long-standing fixture of the pub.
George's earlier reputation was for manifesting as an indistinct figure glimpsed in the attic, or as a whispered cacophony of voices with no clear source. More recently his activity has taken a more mischievous, poltergeist-like turn, with lights and beer taps switching off unexpectedly, much to the amusement, and occasional frustration, of the pub's drinkers. In the 1960s, building work beneath the pub uncovered an ancient well, still visible today through a glass panel set into the bar floor, and it is this discovery that has given George's story its most concrete piece of physical evidence: local speculation holds that he may have fallen down the well at some point in the building's past, giving a real, visitable feature of the pub as the most likely explanation for who he was and how his connection to the building began, even though no specific date or name beyond George has ever been attached to him.
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