Daniel Craig buys haunted pub

The former James Bond star is the new owner of The Horseshoe in Clerkenwell and he's revealed the deal to buy the venue came with the special addition of a spectre named Gilbert - believes to be the ghost of a long-dead London hangman - who haunts the pub's beer cellar.

Craig joked to The Times newspaper: "I don’t know what he drinks but we might have to leave a pint down there: 'Here you are Gilbert'."

The actor is taking over the running of the pub from former landlady Pauline Tucker, who is retiring from the publican business, and she revealed GIlbert is mostly invisible but people often feel his presence.

Craig is renovating the pub ahead of its relaunch with his business partners, hospitality heavyweights Nick Jones and Charlie Carroll, as well as Justin O’Shea, who the actor launched beer brand Bad Belze with last year.

The 007 star - whose parents and grandparents all ran pubs - is happy to be taking up his family's trade and revealed the team are planning to keep the venue's traditional feel as there has been a pub on the site since the mid-18th century.

He said: "You walk through the door and you go: 'It’s a boozer!' Obviously we’ll spruce it up but we’re going to keep it as a boozer ... All we can do is build it and open it and hope they come ...

"I don’t care what gets them through the door but once they’re here [we hope] they want to come back and that’s our job to make it pleasurable ...

"We’d love fancy people to come here and spend some money, but that’s not the aim. It’s to make it accessible for everybody and [so you don’t] have to worry about coming through the door."

Craig - who recently moved back to London with his wife Rachel Weisz after years living in New York - went on to conclude: "You will see me here on a Friday night."