This 16th century former coaching inn was at one time headquarters for staff officers of the 3,000 Parliamentary troops stationed in the town. In a bizarre haunting at the Sun Hotel, a former Lord Havisham appears holding a large fish under his arm. He committed suicide at the Sun Hotel in the 1800s because of heavy gambling debts. Occasionally, there are cries of ‘Mind your head’, although no one is to be seen. One man staying here, Michael Marsden from Yorkshire, felt the body of a woman lying across him in bed trying to choke him. He fled into the night and walked the streets of Hitchin until dawn. A barmaid has watched a phantom monk self-importantly stride across the bar on numerous occasions. This religious spectre goes behind the bar. Then he helps himself to a drink. In 1772, three robbers held up the Sun Hotel at gunpoint, binding and assaulting the proprietor, William Marshall, with his guests. Prior to escaping with their plunder, they scratched their initials and the date on the brickwork adjacent to the main door. From this evidence, they were subsequently arrested, tried and hanged. The ghosts of those three men haunt the old coach entrance still.