THE landlords of an historic town centre pub are calling in the experts after ghostly goings on.

Darts legend Eric Bristow and his friend Barry Birch took over The Swan, in St Edward Street, Leek, in August last year.

Barry, of North Street, Leek, and his family mainly run the pub day to day while son Marcus lives on the premises.

Since taking over they have discovered another presence – one that cannot be seen but seems to be handy at throwing things.

Barry's daughter, Carrie, a barmaid in the adjoining sports bar, had the fright of her life after a bottle mysteriously jumped from the shelf and hit her.

The 29-year-old, of Wardle Crescent, Leek, said: "I was serving in the bar one Saturday at around 12.30pm. I was bottling up the fridges when a bottle came off the top shelf and hit me on the head.

"The people in the bar saw it happen and couldn't believe it and we've never found the bottle since."

The mother-of-two was left with a lump on her head and a black eye but has not let the experience faze her.

She said: "I was a bit shaken up but I just put an ice pack on and got back to work.

"It's not the first time something's been thrown at me. I was making a sandwich in the kitchen and a knife flew across the room. It doesn't bother me apart from the throwing things – I must have upset it."

The first encounter the family had with the pub's spirits was three weeks after they moved in.

Barry's other daughter, Nicky, was upstairs in the office. As she tried to leave she found the door was locked but no one else was around.

Another happening involved a worker from a soft drinks company who was called in to fix the pub's soft drinks dispenser in the cellar.

Barry, aged 57, said: "He put his screwdriver on top of some boxes and walked across the cellar to get something out of his tool box and the screwdriver flew across the room and hit him in the neck.

"The poor lad nearly knocked himself out after running up the cellar steps and hitting his head.

"Another bloke from the same company came to the pub a few weeks ago and I asked how the first guy was and apparently he'd said he wouldn't come here again."

Barry also had an eerie experience in the cellar when he went to tap some barrels and his beer mallet mysteriously moved.

His son Marcus called in a psychic from Wolverhampton who claimed the back of the bar was used to store coffins and part of the pub cellars were once used as a mortuary.

He also suggested the pub was haunted by a 19th century man with a dislike for domineering women.

They later discovered after some research that Co-op undertakers once owned the bar and bodies were kept in the cellar for embalming around four 400 years ago.

Now five times world darts champion Eric wants Living TV's ghost hunting team Most Haunted to visit the pub. The 52-year-old said: "I haven't seen anything personally but lots of things keep happening.

"It's not idiots telling me these things and you don't get a big bump on your head on purpose.

"We'll send in the experts and see what they say but I don't want to get rid of it, it's part of Leek's history."