Landlord Fears 'Pub Ghost' Will Scare Off Staff After Being Caught On Camera

Hayley Budd is convinced 'weird things' have long been going on at The Lansdowne Pub in Cardiff, and recently, she believes she caught a smoking gun on camera.

The 33-year-old was taking a break on 26 July when a chair seemingly slid across the room of its own accord.

The mum-of-three is in no doubt this was the doing of a resident ghost dubbed by regulars as 'Lady Lansdowne'.

Reflecting on the creepy encounter, she said: "I wasn't looking at the chair, I was looking at my phone but I saw it out of the corner of my eye.

"I heard it as well so I asked a customer if they had seen anything and they'd also heard the noise.

"I always try to find the most logical explanation so in the video, you can see me looking to see if it was something in my bag that had moved then I was trying to tell myself that maybe it was the wind.

"I've tried to recreate it so many times but there's no logical explanation. I checked the CCTV to make sure I hadn't been imagining it.

"I wasn't frightened enough to quit my job and run out of there but I was really shocked. I wasn't expecting to see that at all. I don't frighten easily so I still sit at that table on my breaks."

However, while Hayley might not be easily spooked, she's a tad concerned that these weird goings-on could leave her short-staffed.

She said: "One girl who works here thought she'd bumped into another member of staff but when she turned around, he wasn't there.

"Nobody has ever physically seen her [the apparent ghost] standing in front of them, but a couple of weeks ago, the chalkboard started randomly swinging.

"A lot of the staff have said that if anything like that happens when they're there then they'll go home, so I hope Lady Lansdowne takes that into consideration because I don't want to be short-staffed."

It seems the challenge for Hayley then will be convincing her employees that the invisible lady means no harm.

She said: "Weird things do happen but nothing quite as blatant and obvious as this.

"There's a long-term rumour among the regulars about a woman haunting the pub and people who live in the flats above the pub say there are strange goings on up there.

"When I close the pub and there are no customers, I'll go into the cellar to do paperwork or change a barrel and it sounds like there's furniture moving upstairs but when I go up, everything is as I left it.

"I'm not scared just because I've worked here for eight years and she's never done anything that's a cause for concern. She clearly just wants to make herself known."