The Mermaid Inn, Rye

The Mermaid's cellars were built in 1156, when Rye was a thriving Cinque Port on the Channel coast, and an inn stood here through the Middle Ages. On 22 June 1377 French raiders burned Rye, and the Mermaid with it, to the ground, and the building you see today was raised on the old cellars in 1420, with Tudor additions in the sixteenth century. The inn's own records claim Elizabeth I stayed here in 1573 on her progress to Rye, which is why one four-poster room is still called the Elizabethan Bed Chamber. The building is Grade II* listed.

Its most colourful period came in the first half of the eighteenth century, when the Hawkhurst Gang, one of the largest and most violent smuggling gangs in English history, controlled the coast from Kent to Dorset from their base at the Oak and Ivy in Hawkhurst and used the Mermaid as a second headquarters. They are said to have caroused in the bar with loaded pistols in front of them, secure in the knowledge that no magistrate dared interfere. The inn's warren of hidden cellars, secret passages and priest-holes served them well; one passage is said to run to the Olde Bell on the next street, and the escape route can still be seen, blocked off, in the bathroom of the Nutcracker Suite. Thomas Kingsmill, one of the gang's leaders, gives his name to Room 17.

The gang's reign ended on the gallows in the late 1740s. The Mermaid carried on as an inn and, later, a private club and a hotel, and its 31 rooms are today named after people from the history of the inn and the town.

The Mermaid is unusual in that its ghosts are reported by paying guests, night after night, rather than by a handful of historic witnesses, and the inn is relaxed about discussing them. Staff have their own accounts: on one occasion an employee tending the fire in the bar reportedly watched every bottle on the shelf at the far end of the room fall off at once, and handed in his notice. The chair in Room 17 was removed by the owners because complaints from guests about it rocking became so frequent, which is about as good a piece of evidence as a haunted hotel is likely to offer.

The inn has been visited by television. The Most Haunted team filmed here in 2002 and reported "orbs" on camera, and the Mermaid regularly appears in lists of the most haunted hotels in Britain compiled by Haunted Rooms, Spooky Isles, SussexLive and the Sussex Express. Guests writing about their stays describe cold spots in Room 17, the sense of being watched in the Fleur de Lys and unexplained footsteps in the corridors; plenty of others report an entirely peaceful night and a good breakfast.

The sceptical view is worth a hearing. The Mermaid is a 600-year-old timber-framed building with sloping floors, creaking boards and cavernous chimneys, and its ghost stories are good for business in a town that trades on smugglers. The rocking chair could as easily have been set going by a warped floor as by a smuggler's widow. Even the inn's own accounts differ on who the Lady in White is and whether she belongs to Room 1 or Room 17. What nobody disputes is that guests keep asking for the haunted rooms, and keep coming back.

The Mermaid Inn is a working hotel and restaurant, so the best way to experience it is to stay. It has 31 bedrooms, many with four-posters, panelling and open fireplaces, and the haunted rooms can be requested by name when booking: the Elizabethan Bed Chamber (Room 16), the James (Room 1), the Kingsmill (Room 17) and the Fleur de Lys (Room 10) are the ones with stories attached, and the Hawkhurst Suite is named for the gang. Expect low beams, uneven floors and steep stairs; this is not a building for anyone who needs step-free access, though the inn can advise on the most manageable rooms.

Non-residents can eat in the restaurant, which holds two AA Rosettes, or drink in the Giant's Fireplace Bar, where the Hawkhurst Gang once sat, and where the secret stair from Room 16 is said to come out. Ghost-hunt events at the Mermaid are sold by specialist operators such as Haunted Rooms, so check their listings if you want a vigil rather than a quiet night. Book well ahead for weekends and for Halloween.

Rye is a small hilltop town in East Sussex near the Kent border, about an hour from Ashford by train via Rye station, and Mermaid Street is a short, steep walk from the station. Parking on the cobbles is very limited; the inn has a small car park for guests, but check when booking. If the Mermaid is full, Rye has plenty of other historic inns and guesthouses within a few minutes' walk.