THIS must surely be one of the eeriest and most ethereal images in our archive.

It shows the ballroom of the Goddard Arms hotel in Old Town, which seems to have been part of what is now the venue’s large ground floor space.

The design of the chandeliers suggests they ran on gas, which dates the image to the late 19th or early 20th century.

By that time, the hotel was already well over 300 years old; indeed, it pre-dated the arrival of the gentry whose name it still bears, having been known as the Crown Inn when the Goddards came in the 16th century.

The picture is one of a series of three showing interior views of the historic building.