Paul Lanagan of the Houghton-le-Spring Heritage Society writes that records for the Robbie Burns go back to 1851, when John Ray was landlord, and that adverts in the 2000 Houghton Feast programme called it the Most Haunted Pub in Houghton. It stood close to the town's theatres, so players and musicians drank there after the curtain came down.
In the 1980s the local press reported poltergeist activity and four ghosts. One was an old woman in black who was seen to melt into a wall. Several customers and a member of staff saw the silhouette of a man move through the pub. A fair-haired child in Victorian clothes was also seen. The fourth, and the best known, is Thomas Caldwell, who was allegedly killed in the cellar in 1876. After a beer delivery he was found with his head crushed under a barrel, still barely alive, and the story says that when well-meaning rescuers moved the barrel he died. Electrical disturbances, strange noises and slamming doors are attributed to him.
The 1876 death is told as a story and Lanagan hedges it with the word allegedly. The account is from a local historian who relays the 1980s press coverage, and no individual witness is named. Lanagan's own tag line is that the 2002 landlady's Rottweiler had never reacted to anything.
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