Blue Bell, Belmesthorpe, Rutland

It's been a long time since village pubs could rely for their success on beer sales and local drinkers alone. A quality dining experience is all but essential these days particularly if rural pubs want to attract visitors from outside the immediate area. But sadly for those of us who like a pub to be just that, drinkers can sometimes be effectively excluded from a pub in favour of the all pervasive dining experience.

It's often argued that when a struggling pub is reinvented as a successful dining venue, on balance it's a positive thing because at least the pub has been saved from closure. Certainly a closed pub is serving no-ones needs, but where I disagree with this thinking is when a pub has become so singularly focused on the dining experience that it is to all intents a restaurant with bar and not a pub at all. In these cases, a pub has not in fact been saved, but rather a restaurant has been created at the expense of the pub stock. Of course how common this situation has become is largely down to your interpretation of what a pub is. I know there are many people who believe that so long as the bar has a handpump or two on it, ideally dispensing something from a small or local brewery, it's still fulfilling its role as a pub. I believe there's much more to a pub than the beer. What sets a good pub apart from a restaurant is that it should include at least some space conducive to wider social interaction, perhaps even with people outside of your own social clique. Restaurants, and many of the more upmarket dining pubs simply don't encourage this kind of social mingling. They are not pubs in my view.

Which brings me to the Blue Bell pub in Belmesthorpe, a very good example of how to cater for the all important food trade, yet still maintain its essential 'pubiness'. Not only does landlord Aubrey Johnson win awards for the quality of the beer on offer, but he has also made every effort to maintain the pub as the hub of the community. The bar is still a place to drink and chat, and games are still an important part of the mix at this community local.

The league staples of Darts, Cribbage, and Dominoes are played, with other games in the pipeline including a recently acquired Bagatelle, and plans for a Devil Amongst The Tailors. It's not surprising that games play such an important role at the Blue Bell, the landlord previously played Pushpenny in the nearby Stamford league, and still keeps his own board polished and ready at the pub.

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The Plough Inn, Old Radford, Nottingham

In common with many large towns and cities, you'll be hard pressed to find much in the way of interesting pub games in the centre of Nottingham. The closer to the busy shopping areas of a town you get, the higher the rents, and inevitably space in pubs tends to be devoted to the revenue generating pastimes of vertical drinking and dining. With one or two notable exceptions (which I'll be featuring here at a later date), you have to take a stroll to the fringes of town to find anything like a traditional game, even Darts can be hard to find in the centre.

The Plough at Old Radford is well worth the stroll out of town, not only for the comprehensive selection of pub games, but also the wide range of excellent real ales from the adjacent Nottingham Brewery. Firmly traditional in character, featuring two separate bars served from a central servery, cosy real fires in the Winter (or indeed the wet and windy Summer when I visited), a pub just as it should be.

Perhaps the most interesting game featured at the pub is the long alley skittles in the small garden at the rear. Quite a rarity for Nottingham now, most of these being located further afield in the Notts and Derby area.

For a throw to count in this version of Long Alley Skittles, one foot must remain in this hole when throwing the wooden balls (Woods), which must bounce once before hitting the front King Pin. In this image you can just make out the loose sheet of metal in front of the pins. A throw must also clear this to count, and the loud rattle of the metal is a clear indication of a foul throw. Opinions vary on the positioning of the King Pin, some stating it must be at the front of the diamond pattern, other in the middle. The licensee of the Plough helpfully suggested that 'it all depends...' which I'm taking as the definitive answer. On the right of this image, and below right, can be seen the yellow piping used to return the Woods to the throwing end

The alcove for the Darts Board is also home to the Dictionary & Games Corner, home to a Bagatelle, as well as the Dominoes, Cards and Cribbage Boards for scoring.

A nice modern Shove Ha'penny Board is available on request at the bar, in common with many such boards, now rarely used. A Devil Amongst The Taylors table is also available, though currently awaiting the replacement of a missing pin.



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