But rather than such reports putting off visitors to Orrell's Premier Inn and the adjoining Mount, it is proving a boon for business.
Agnes and Joe Fox from Glasgow were staying at the hotel last week while visiting friends in Wigan.

In the middle of the night, Agnes woke up to see a smartly-dressed man standing next to the bed.
He was within touching distance, but when Agnes cried out in shock and to wake her husband, the figure vanished.

Afraid of appearing silly, Agnes never mentioned the apparition to staff the next morning, but on returning home looked up Internet stories about The Mount and discovered she wasn't alone in seeing spooks.

Bosses of the hotel haven't dismissed her sighting either, saying it's "perfectly possible" that she wasn't imagining things.
She said today: "I don't believe in ghosts and a few people have been suggesting I had been having too much of the other kind of spirit, but I wasn't drunk. My husband is disabled and I have to stay sober for his sake and safety.

"We were in room number six and it was in the middle of the night when I woke up suddenly to see this man just standing there looking at me.
"He was white, 30 to 35-years-old with a squarish face and well-kept mousy to brown hair. He was wearing a suit which would be in fashion in the 1950s or '60s.

"I was quite startled but not exactly frightened. One moment he was there, the next he wasn't. If he was a ghost, then the dead can't harm you anyway.

"That experience won't stop us coming back to the Premier Inn at Orrell because the service, facilities and the staff were wonderful. We might not have the same room though."

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