With Halloween fast approaching, the landlords of an Enfield pub have revealed the secrets of its resident ghost.

The "little old lady" lives in the cellar of the 400-year-old Crown and Horseshoes pub in Horseshoe Lane, keeping landlord and landlady Byron Furness and Lynette Clarke company since they moved in last October.

Byron, 38, has experienced several encounters with the spirit, who let her presence be known just three days after they took over.

He recalled: “I was locking up after closing and left my keys downstairs. I came down and saw her standing at the bar, a clear outline of an old lady. I jumped and froze. She was there for four or five seconds.”

In recent months, her pastimes have included playing with the bell behind the bar when she is not residing - appropriately - in the spirit cupboard of the cellar.

Bryon said: “We’ve had phases of alarms going off for no reason. I came down to turn them off and went back upstairs and saw the cord of the bell swinging on the cameras. I went back down and it was still swinging, coming to a stop. I didn’t hear the bell, I just saw it.”

The landlord’s 21-year-old son Tom Clarke has also felt the spirit of the little old lady when he and dad Byron were alone downstairs.

Tom said: “It was a moment when we felt the hairs on the backs of our necks. We both turned to each other and said that something was weird.”

Yet despite these spooky revelations, the Enfield ghost is tame in comparison to a pub they used to run in Burton-on-Trent, where a multitude of roaming spirits haunted owner and punter alike.

Byron added: “This is nothing in comparison to our old pub The Old Royal Oak. There were 14 ghosts there doing all sorts. Twice I was pushed down the stairs.”

However, in the past the Enfield ghost has shown a deadly streak, leading to the demise of previous Crown and Horseshoes landlords. In 1816 she was rumoured to have brought about the end of publican John Draper, found dead at the bottom of a well thought to lie beneath the cellar.

Mary Holborn found the body and is even rumoured to be the little old lady herself. The pub's previous landlord James Tuck soon became prime suspect but was acquitted of the crime.

The ghost may have returned in some form in 1832 when sailor Benjamin Danby was murdered by one of the men he won money from after a night of gambling in the pub’s old tap room. The killer was hanged.

So far Lynette has avoided any confrontation with her, but Bryon believes more ghosts could be in the building.

He said: “I am sure there is someone else, I think a male ghost lives here too."