A PUB landlady has described her terrifying ordeal at the hands of gun-toting raiders on Sunday night.

Detectives are still hunting the two masked robbers who held up the Derby Arms at Treales, near Kirkham, at around 11pm.

Wearing white masks and brandishing a shotgun and knife the two men forced frightened members of staff and a customer to lie down before taking another member of staff hostage and marching them into the licensee's accommodation.

There they forced the landlord to open a safe and hand over thousands of pounds before escaping in a white hatchback car.

Landlady Patrician Doran told The Citizen she and her husband Derek and their staff were all "very traumatised" by the threats of violence.

"To be faced with a double-barrelled shotgun and told, 'Get down on the floor or I will shoot you' -- we were absolutely devastated," she said.

"It was like a dream, as if it's not happening to you and you're just watching it. You can't think straight."

Thinking she was alone upstairs, Mrs Doran was unaware her husband was just feet away in another room. "I came out of the bedroom and I saw this figure kicking at the door and I said, 'What are you doing?' They kicked down two doors."

The masked man threatened to shoot her if she did not lie down, but she managed to escape downstairs where she found staff being held at knife-point and being threatened with an axe, she said.

Mrs Doran added: "My husband is very, very traumatised. They threatened to shoot him. He could hear my voice but he did not know what had happened to me."

Security has been stepped up, she said, but the couple's future is unclear. "We are not sure what our plans are. It's a lovely place, we have got lovely customers and lovely staff, and then something like this happens. It's very unnerving because every bang you hear now you think they are coming back."

The pub was cordoned off on Monday while police officers made a forensic search of both the inside and the forecourt of the pub.

Det Insp Neil Gregson of Blackpool Police said officers were following several lines of inquiry, including looking at whether there had been any similar incidents in Lancashire and the North West.

He also confirmed reports that one staff member has been taken hostage and frogmarched into the landlord's accommodation during the raid. He said the robbers had used a knife and a shotgun.

And police have issued a description of the two men. The man holding the shotgun was described as about six feet tall, thin, with one or two gold front teeth and wearing dark clothing. The other man was slightly smaller, stocky and also wore dark clothes.

DI Gregson appealed for anyone who was around the Derby Arms between 10.30pm and 11.15pm on Sunday or who may have passed the white car on Spen Lane between about 10.30pm and 11pm to get in touch by phoning Blackpool Police on 293933 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.