Iconic Goldfields pub up for sale

For sale: one iconic WA pub at a good price. Prospective buyers must be willing to embrace resident ghosts and wait until 2016 to take ownership.

The Broad Arrow Tavern, which sits unpretentiously in red dirt some 38km from Kalgoorlie, has been stamped with a $420,000 price tag by owner Neil Cull, who has had the watering hole for nearly three decades.

But lessee Mark Howarth, whose hold on the licence expires in 2016, has promised a mining company he will not sell up until its drilling finishes, with the weekly $6000 spend by its staff more than enough for the deal.

"We made a commitment that we would stay until they leave and it's worth us staying," Mr Howarth, himself an underground miner, said. "We were almost ready to go, but they came to us and saved the day a little bit."

Mr Howarth says the resident ghosts are "not nasty".

"A lady hanged herself over the pool tables in the 40s and she haunts the place," he said.

"There is a little girl my daughter sees occasionally and there is an old bloke by the name of Steamshovel and his ashes are in one of the trays out the back.

"Then there's Hec, who was known as the mayor of Broad Arrow, and his ashes are on a shelf above the bar with his photos.

"Sometimes things happen but we're used to it and just tell them to go away and away they go."

Built in 1896, the pub is famous for its "Broady Burger" and graffiti-filled interior. Mr Howarth believes it is a unique opportunity for the right owners.

"We're looking for the right people," he said. "Some people get it and some don't. Some people think it's just a piece of crap tin shed in the middle of nowhere and some people see it for what we see it for - an iconic Goldfields hotel with a lot of history and one of the few left from the old days. This is the ridgy-didge and people come here from all over the world.

"You've definitely got to have a country, Goldfields attitude, be fairly laid-back and with the ability to talk to people from all walks of life. But we want to see it trading for another 118-odd years."