A PUB which controversially employs topless barmaids is taking the idea one step further by employing middle-aged ones.

It comes just months after church leaders appealed for landlords to ban topless barmaids.

The Little White Horse in Hammerton Street, Burnley took to using half-naked women when business was hit by road works.

The women, who serve pints in little more than a short skirt are helping the licensees and owners William and Michelle Thorpe to bring in custom.

The barmaids appear twice a week on Friday and Saturday nights and are aged up to 45.

The pub is one of only a handful in East Lancashire to use the gimmick, even though it is more common in cities elsewhere in the country.

Michelle said that customers had called for older barmaids to come to the pub.

She said: "At first we thought that by having young topless barmaids in it would suit everybody, but by popular demand customers have asked to have barmaids who are a bit older.

"Some people don't like it, but then again others love it, and we have a bar upstairs where people can go if they don't want to look at topless barmaids."

A spokesman for the Church of England's Blackburn Diocese, which covers the Burnley area said after the barmaids first came to the Burnley pub that well run pubs did not have to rely on sexist gimmicks.

He said that Christians believed that women and men were created by God to live and work together with respect and co-operation.

Michelle said that the barmaids were a harmless bit of fun and there had not been any problems since they had been at the pub.