A Compendium of Darts Images

Whether played casually between friends, or more competitively at league and cup level, Darts is still probably the most popular game played in Britain's pubs and clubs. It's certainly the one most widely found and undoubtedly the game most strongly associated with the pub. But even Darts has followed the more general decline in pub games, and is not nearly as popular as it once was.There seems to be an increasing number of pubs where the Darts Board...

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The Three Cocks, Kettering, Northamptonshire

When a pub changes hands the new licensees will inevitably want to stamp their own personalities and ideas on the business, often in the form of a makeover. At best a good refurbishment can revitalise a previously moribund business, maybe even turn around a pub on the verge of closure and eventual loss. At worst the makeover can go too far, removing all vestiges of 'pubiness', and effectively turning the place into little more than a licenced coffee...

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Long Alley in Long Eaton, Derbyshire

The Derbyshire town of Long Eaton has for many years been at the very centre of the Long Alley Skittles tradition. Until relatively recently, Tuesday evenings would have been alive with the clunk and clatter of highly competitive skittling, such was the popularity of the game with the (mostly male) locals. From my own observations in the town, practically every pub and club must have had an alley at one time, indeed most still do, though sadly many...

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Pushpenny and a Government Issue Shove Ha'penny!

The Shove Ha'penny Board shown here was a recent inexpensive acquisition from a vintage stall in Gloucestershire. No information on its origin was forthcoming from the dealer, which is a shame but usually the case.At first glance it appears to be little more than a cheap homemade board, very similar in appearance to another inexpensive board which has already featured on this blog. Both are constructed from three planks of tongue and groove timber,...

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The Stag Inn, Kimberley, Nottinghamshire

The village of Kimberley to the north of Nottingham was perhaps best known for being the home of Hardys & Hansons Kimberley Ales, brewed at what was then the county's oldest working brewery. Sadly, and in common with many of the older regional and local brewers, Hardys & Hansons sold out their brewing interests along with the associated pub estate to the predatory Greene King brewery of Bury St Edmunds, who almost immediately closed the brewery....

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Coach & Horses, Harvington, Worcestershire

Pubs in the Evesham area have already featured on this blog, an area noted for that most traditional of pub and club games, Cribbage. The Coach & Horses at the nearby village of Harvington is no exception, and the contents of the trophy cabinet in the lounge attests to the pubs success in local Crib competition. It's somewhat rarer to find a fully functioning Skittle Alley in an Evesham pub now, which is not to say the game is no longer played...

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