For over 400 years, there have been tales of the Devil haunting this pub in the shape of a black dog. A large beast, it also, observers saw, to haunt the road between the Bell Inn and the local vicarage. Records tell of invisible horses galloping across the common and a small man dressed in brown seen to enter the churchyard, only to vanish. During the 18th century, a Negro drummer called Toby from a local regiment murdered a Walberswick girl. Authorities arrested him, tried, and later hanged. Toby is one of the ghosts at the Bell Inn along with a phantom angler, who appears in the old smoking room. Since Toby’s execution, there have been accounts of a phantom coach driven by a black coachman in the lane near where he the authorities executed. Author, George Orwell, saw a large black dog apparition that runs across the marshes at low tide. Blair also saw a man, small and stooping, outside the church and followed him to the pub, where the ghostly man disappeared into a wall. At the Walberswick landing stage there, observers have seen, the ghosts of a youth and an old man crossing the river in a boat. This boat glides across towards a fog bank and suddenly disappears. No one sees this mysterious boat and men at other times. As far back as 1577, local people have talked of the Devil's Dog, about the size of a calf, appearing in the village.