Spooky videos show pints sliding off bar at Jolly Sailor pub at Ashlett Creek, Fawley

A pub in Fawley is fast building up a reputation as the most haunted in the New Forest after spooky videos showed drinks sliding off the edge of a bar.

The chilling incidents, captured on CCTV, are the latest in a series of strange happenings at the Jolly Sailor in Ashlett Creek over the past few years.

The footage shows pints of beer sliding across a seemingly level bar, which bar manager Emily Waters says has never happened before.

“We have darts teams whose members put their drinks on that particular bar three times a week, and never before have they slid off like we saw on the video,” Emily told the A&T.

“The lady whose drink slid off in the first incident – she’s one of our regulars – couldn’t understand it. We were joking with her saying she was angling for a free pint and that she’d knocked it off. That’s why we watched the CCTV back.”

Emily, who has worked at the pub for three years and researched the site’s history, said there had been other creepy occurrences of bar snacks flying off the wall and ice buckets falling over.

Staff and customers are blaming the ghost of James Martin, who was the son of the original pub landlord Richard Martin.

James is believed to have run the pub, which was first licensed in 1848, from the 1870s, and Emily said he was renowned for pulling people’s glasses back if they were within six inches of the edge of the bar.

“He was a quirky, well-known character,” she continued. “There are a lot of accounts from the old RAF base at Calshot of James Martin and his weird ways – for instance he hated it when people came into the pub with muddy boots.

“Before it became a pub it was a house belonging to Richard Martin – we believe the building to be 203 years old – but back then people on low incomes were allowed to sell alcohol from their homes and it became an alehouse.

“We also have an old mill next door, and others believe our ghost could be the spirit of the original miller, Thomas Barney. I’m fascinated by the history of the place and the fact that at one stage it was a really industrial port – not just a few fishing boats as it is now.”

Emily said she would never stay in the pub alone.

“If the landlord, Mark, goes on holiday I won’t stay there, ever,” she said. “When I lock up – I set the alarms and I get to the back door, and I sometimes hear whispering in the bar area.

“The main bar goes straight into the kitchen, and when I shut the door to the kitchen late at night I see shadows in the corner of my eye. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“It’s a feeling I get – it’s not sinister, but it’s like you can feel the shadows of the past.”

Emily said the Jolly Sailor ‘ghost’ is a popular topic of conversation in the local community.

“They’ve got really into it since we captured video of the glasses moving,” she said. “We even set five glasses of soda on that bar to see if any of them would move – not one of them did. It’s all very bizarre.”

The pub community has even considered contacting the makers of paranormal TV series such as Ghosthunters.

“It’s just fantastic we managed to get it on CCTV,” said Emily.

The Jolly Sailor is owned by the Cadland Estate and run by landlord Mark Cox.