Two women who started knitting in a pub were told by the landlord to put away their balls of wool.

Penny Nicholas and Hayley Fisher, of the Threadbare Knitting Club, were astonished to be thrown out of The Cricketers in Black Lion Street, Brighton.

They had hoped to set up a weekly knitting night at the pub, inspired by a surge in the popularity of the hobby which has been taken up by Hollywood stars.

But after taking out their needles and balls of wool, they were approached by the landlord who told them to stop.

Ms Nicholas, 30, of Withdean, Brighton, had publicised the session on thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk She said: "The landlord said he'd seen the advert and told us: 'I don't think you should be doing this. It's not the kind of thing we want to be promoting.'

"Perhaps he didn't want all the other landlords taking the mickey out of him for having a knitting group in his pub. We were a bit too stunned to be angry. We just walked out. It was only when we got outside that we thought: 'Hang on'.

"I'm not gay but I felt like I'd been outed. I felt how it must feel when people are told: 'We don't want your type in here'."

Leo Day, operations manager for The Golden Lion Group which owns The Cricketers, said: "They had not agreed it with the manager - that was what he was more concerned about."

Ms Nicholas, who works at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, is looking for a pub where the group will be welcome on Monday nights.