A REMARKABLE find behind some bathroom tiles at the Tavistock Inn has led to a Sherlock Holmes-style search for the pub?s old inhabitants.

Helen and Derek, landlords of the Brook Street inn, discovered comics and cigarette packets dating back more than 100 years, stuffed behind lath and plaster in the pub?s bathroom.

Karen said: ?We were redecorating and some of the tiles needed replacing, but when we came to take them off we found a cavity behind them which was blocked up with these comics.?

Two of the comics are called ?Comic Cuts? and date from November 16 1895 and May 30 1896. The oldest of the three is an ?Illustrated Chips? and is dated October 19 1895 when it would have cost the reader a halfpenny.

The cigarette packets were found when the couple rewired the living room and took up the floorboards.

Helen said: ?There were just loads of them stuffed in crevices under the floor.

?We have put them around the door frame in the bar area so that our customers can see them - some of them are really old.?

The findings have sparked a search by the publicans to find out more about the historical inhabitants of the ancient establishment.

Derek said: ?We found a name inscribed on one of the beams in the flat that says, R Menhenick joiner, and we?d love to find out who that is, so if anyone in the area recognises the name, or knows something about the history of the Tavistock Inn we?d love to hear from them.?

The couple have had the comics valued but have been told they are only worth a few pounds and are more valuable as a piece of the pub?s history than as antiques.

Helen and Derek now plan to display them in frames on the inn walls so that all their customers can enjoy a comical moment from more than a century before.