OVER the past few weeks in Looking Back we have been telling the story of some of Warrington's best loved pub.

The Black Horse, on Old Liverpool Road in Sankey Bridges, dates back to the early 1600s.

It opened in 1632 as a coaching inn and claims to be Warrington's oldest pub. The Barley Mow, based in the town centre dates back to the 1500s but was set up as an inn.

It was formally listed in 1975.

Ambitious plans to restore it were revealed in 2022 but it remains closed.

The Black Horse is Warrington’s oldest public houses and home to the legend of ‘The Crawling Man’.

It was once a stabling yard run by a blacksmith called Giles Boston - he met his grizzly end when he was shot in the chest by the leader of the Cavaliers after they tried to take his horses.

Boston was seen by a gatekeeper on the nearby Sankey Canal, crawling on the street. The story goes that the Black Horse was the scene of the last local skirmish between Roundheads and Cavaliers during the Civil War.

A party of Royalists was fleeing the area and called at the pub, which then had stables, demanding horses. The landlord Giles Boston refused and was shot and staggered from the building looking for help.

He crawled to the road for help but died before anyone could notice him.

It is thought that his ghost is the 'crawling man'.

For over 200 years, witness claim to have seen a ghost holding a hand to his chest outside the pub.

In 1860, it was said that a man woke up to loud knocking – he opened the door to a man in great pain but he vanished into thin air before anything could be done.