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The coming and going of patrons at Victoria’s Four Mile House pub and restaurant does not seem to disturb its reputed ghosts, nor do the ghosts particularly disturb owners Graham and Wendy Haymes.

The couple bought the dilapidated old roadhouse in1979 after the city had condemned the structure as unsafe. Their plan was to restore the house, built by Peter Calvert in 1858, and refurbish it as a tearoom with and adjoining antique furniture shop.

In 1984, after the tearoom opened, Wendy and members of her staff say they were surprised to see a man sitting at one of the tables. He wore a trench coat over and out-of date suit and was removing papers from and old fashioned briefcase. Whenever anyone turned to confront him, staff says he disappeared, yet the chair he had seemingly occupied was out of place at the table.

Wendy also recalls seeing “a women in a long dress looking out a window that is now in our laundry room, “apparently admiring the garden”.

In 1988, the Haymes’ closed the tearoom and antique shop and opened a dining room and pub in their place. Phantom footsteps were reported, and staff complained that objects disappeared from where they had been placed, only to reappear later.

Local legend tells of ghostly woman in a long white dress who stands on a point overlooking Esquimalt Harbour, not far from Four Mile House. She is thought to be a relative of the early Calverts and Wendy believes it is this woman’s spirit that visits the Four Mile, where her likeness has been captured in stained-glass window.