The Shambles, Lutterworth, Leicestershire

One area of Leics/Northants Table Skittles play that appears to be truly thriving in these difficult times for pubs, is the Ladies game in South Leicestershire. Just take a look at the fixture list below, which shows only one of the four divisions in the Dunton Bassett Summer League. I know most of these pubs well from my days living in the Narborough area, and they're all good solid locals, some of which I'd assumed had fallen by the wayside in recent years, so it's great to see them still going strong.

On the late afternoon I popped into Lutterworth, my favourite back-street boozer, the Unicorn, was rammed with drinkers. Too busy in fact for photography, which can only be a good thing. The Unicorn even has a spare table propped up in the back, the game must be quite popular here.

The Shambles is located on the other side of the busy main road. A tidy pub with a good sized games area featuring Dart, Pool, and a well polished Skittles Table. The pins and cheeses are the plastic variety which seem to be favoured in this area, the latter embossed with the pub name and also the name of Colin Swinfen, a renovator and builder of skittles tables (and presumably handy with a cheese himself) in nearby South Kilworth.