Visitors to an Oxfordshire pub have been taking fright at one customer who could have been a regular for more than 500 years - the ghostly figure of a soldier in red.

The White Hart at Fyfield, near Abingdon, was built in the reign of Henry VI and is reputed to have been used by one of Oliver Cromwell's generals during the English Civil War of the 1640s.

Tracey and Ian Rogers, who have run the pub since January, first suspected there was another worldly presence at their medieval premises when they opened after a refurbishment in April.

Mrs Rogers said: "The first thing that happened was on opening night when the chef saw somebody in red. He walked through a door into the new boiler room, which is an extension - originally it would have been an external door.

"Since then, three different people have seen a man in a red uniform in one of the rooms, which is where he would have been walking from the night the chef saw him."

Mrs Rogers has no clues about who the ghost might be, but said most witnesses agreed it was the figure of a soldier dressed in a red uniform. Some have described him as looking like a cavalier, one of the royalist soldiers who fought against Cromwell's Roundheads, while another said he looked like a Chelsea Pensioner.

She said: "I've never seen him myself, but there's a cottage next door and he's been seen in there twice, and he's been tied up. We've heard there's a tunnel that runs from here to the cottage and to the church. One of the locals said he saw the tunnel in the 1960s when the pub was refurbished."

The pub's staff have experienced other unusual events, including candles being blown out and relit, figures appearing in windows and footsteps emanating from empty rooms.

Mrs Rogers does not think the ghostly visitor is bad for business. She said: "Some of the locals get really excited and say they want to see it. It doesn't feel scary. I don't think it's anything nasty."