Pattenmakers Arms, Duffield, Derbyshire

If it wasn't for the fact that so many good pubs have had so much of their character and history 'refurbished' away in recent years, a pub like the Pattenmakers Arms would perhaps be regarded as a largely unremarkable backstreet boozer, and in many ways it is. It's a friendly and welcoming locals pub for sure, and certainly noted for serving a good pint, but going about its business in the unfussy and unpretentious way that backstreet pubs like this have been doing for generations.

It's the widespread blandness evident in modern pub design and decor, and the relative paucity of those which have retained a vestige of their heritage intact which makes pubs like the Pattenmakers special. Largely unspoilt Edwardian pubs like this are not nearly as common as they once were, and sadly are becoming rarer still with every closure and crassly insensitive refurbishment.

Etched and colourful stained glass windows at the Pattenmakers act to diffuse the bright sunlight in a way now frowned on by our current crop of pub designers. An attractive mix of original quarry tile, parquet, and mosaic flooring has survived throughout the pub, and the entirely un-radical use of carpeting, curtains, and other soft furnishings helps to absorb sound. It's the curse of modern coffee house style pubs and bars, that even when only moderately busy the cacophony of conversation and general noise can rise to unpleasant levels. All the result of the current trend for bright hard surfaces at the expense of old-fashioned comfort.

So the Pattenmakers is a pub full of genuine heritage and character, comfortable and cosy, and with a great reputation for beer and a friendly welcome. Which makes it even more sad that at the time of writing, the pubs owners Enterprise Inns are to set to reward the hard-working licensees of the Pattenmakers with a doubling the rent. Such is the reward for success in the licensed trade these days, particularly under the yolk of near-bankrupt pub companies such as Enterprise, and it could be that the pub will change hands in the near future. I wish the licensees the very best with their negotiations. I can only hope that going forward Enterprise might treat the pub with more sensitivity and respect than they have the licensees.

A traditional local like the Pattenmakers is naturally home to a range of traditional pub games. Dominoes is popular, as is Darts and Long Alley Skittles, both of which are played in local leagues.

A skittle set resides for safe keeping under the pool table of the bar. The alley is located in the car park, overlooked by a small beer garden which is ideal for spectators to view proceedings on a warm summer evening. This alley features floodlighting, and a rain-proof scoreboard so that play can continue in the Belper & District League even through the very worst English summer weather.

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A Compendium of Pub Games Images - Pt.18

A modern Bar Billiards Table at the historic Rowell Charter Inn, Rothwell, Northamptonshire.

This wonderfully un-PC guide to the rules of Long Alley Skittles can be found in the basement Alley of the Embankment in Nottingham, as featured on this blog already. Very 70's/80's in appearance, but a good summation of the rules of the game. I wonder who the cartoonist was.

The two off-season Skittle Alleys below are in Belper, Derbyshire. The Astro Turfed Alley on the right is at the Devonshire Arms, the other at the rear of the Nags Head. Both are active in the Belper & District league. Note that even though this is a Summer game, both of these alleys are floodlit to prevent the chance of fading light prematurely ending a league match.

Darts, Dominoes, and Table Skittles are played at the Polhill Arms in Renhold, Bedfordshire. Tuesday is Skittles nights in the Beds & Roberts Skittles League, with Darts played in the Bedford Darts League.

Old tobacco advertising Cribbage Boards used for decorative purposes only at the Wheatsheaf in Oakham, Rutland. Not a venue strong on pub games, though quiz nights are held, and the pub has strong connections with local Cricket.

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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 are no longer in regular use. Even so, there is still an active Long Alley Skittles league centred on Long Eaton, with perhaps half of the towns venues hosting games in the Summer league.

One of the unique features of Long Alley Skittles as played in the north Midlands is that it's predominantly an outdoor game, often played on alleys which double as car parking outside of match nights. It's this durable and semi-permanent aspect to the alleys which has helped preserve many of them from loss, in stark contrast to the many indoor alleys and other traditional pub features which continue to be lost following changes of ownership, or over-zealous refurbishment.

The alley shown above is at the rear of the New Inn, a lively, fully modernised bar in the centre of town. It's a typical outdoor 'Summer League' alley of a type found throughout Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Despite being very well maintained, this alley doesn't appear to be in league use at the moment (the skittles shown here are my own). The New Inn team are still active, but appear to have moved up the road to Brennan's. This is quite a common occurrence in league play, sometimes the result of the home pub closing, or simply a change of ownership mid-season. Note the sectional concrete return chute on the right. Built to last, thoroughly functional, and yet somehow a more elegant solution than the modern plastic pipe returns commonly seen.

Meanwhile, the alley at the rear of the Tiger Inn (right) could do with a good sweep, and the return chute has certainly seen better days. A neglected skittle alley like this one is quite a sad sight, but at least it's still there, and it wouldn't take too much to bring it back into use at a future time.

The Corner Pin is a typical town centre bar, popular with a younger crowd and not noted for its skittles play, though presumably it once would have been. There are many Corner Pins dotted around this part of the Midlands (and a few elsewhere), the name usually referring to the local skittles game.

The alley shown below is another neglected example, this one at the rear of the currently closed Royal Oak. The pub stands on a large plot with an extensive car park and Long Alley area. The feeling in the town is that the Royal Oak is unlikely to escape the developer, so this alley may well be lost along with the pub in the near future.

The Stumble Inn has a Long Alley at the rear of the pub, but as can be seen in the image above, it is no longer in use. The 'throw' for this alley is now home to a tidy new decking area, so is unlikely to come back into use any time soon.

It's not all pub game archaeology at the Stumble Inn though, with active Pool, Darts, and Domino competition in evidence. There's even the relatively rare sight of a Pinball in the games area, a game which has ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years, mainly I think due to the high maintenance costs of the tables. It's also a game which has been around long enough in this country to be tentatively considered a traditional pub game!

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Evesham Crib League

I recently spent a day exploring the pubs in the Worcestershire town of Evesham. The day was a simple pleasure trip for the most part, but I was also hopeful that if I went a little bit off the beaten track I might be lucky enough to find that most rare of pub games, an Evesham Quoits or Dobbers Board. Sadly, that goal proved fruitless, it really does seem that the once popular game of indoor Quoits has disappeared entirely from the pubs of Evesham, though it's quite likely a few boards might still be in situ gathering dust in the loft. The only pub in the town listed in the current Good Beer Guide had nothing interesting to offer this blog, it is a Wetherspoon after all. I do wonder whether there are any Wetherspoon bars in the country with even so much as a Darts Board to play. Perhaps someone will tell me if there is, I don't make a habit of drinking in this chain of bars to be honest.

What I did find in Evesham, still thriving, particularly in those pubs located a little way out from the town centre, was the card game most strongly associated with pubs and clubs, the game of Cribbage. Crib is not an easy game to master. It's a game where you really have to keep your hand in to play at anything like league level, and that involves a level of time and commitment which many people simply can't give these days. It's therefore one of the traditional pub games which is perhaps most likely to struggle or even disappear in the near future. I've only very rarely seen the game played by younger pub goers, and the recent trend for Poker in pubs and clubs is likely to put even more pressure on the survival of Cribbage as a league game.

You have to venture a short distance out from the town centre, over the river to Port Street to find The Bear, a popular multi-roomed corner pub. The multi-room bit is important, it means there's a space for everyone at The Bear. There's a smart, recently refurbished corner lounge bar, a more basic but tidy front bar (below) where the Ashes cricket held sway, and a larger lounge bar (above) which is where the locals gather to throw Darts or play Cribbage. The image above shows a Saturday afternoon game in progress.

The Angel Vaults, also on Port Street, is the kind of unassuming single room corner local you might easily pass by, but I found it one of the friendliest boozers in the town and well worth popping in for a pint. The trophy shown below is for Cribbage, as indeed are most of the trophies on display in the town. This one is the Bill Harris Secretarys Cup, which is played for in the Evesham Crib League. There's a Pool Table in the front part of the tidy traditional bar.

The Railway Hotel (below) close to the station has recently been given a sensitive refurbishment after several years of neglect. Sunday afternoon is Cribbage time, and as can be seen from the blackboard in the bar, lessons are available for beginners.

This trophy cabinet at the Coach & Horses, Harvington near Evesham, has all manner of cups, shields and engraved glasses on show, but once again they are mostly for Cribbage. This pub is one of the few in the area which still has an active Skittle Alley, and this will feature in a future post on the pub.

Some more examples of the limitless variety to be found in Crib Boards.

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The Plough, Little Downham, Cambridgeshire

At first glance, the Grade II listed Plough might appear to be the kind of village local which has been largely untouched by the passage of time. The interior of the pub is certainly 'unspoilt' and thoroughly traditional in appearance, but the fact is the Plough will have seen many changes over the years. Any village institution which has managed to weather more than a hundred years of changing customer taste, and an occasional change of ownership, simply has to change or face almost inevitable decline. It all comes down to how sensitively that change is managed whether a pub can juggle the often conflicting goals of tradition and staying 'on-trend' as it were. The Plough succeeds where many similar village pubs have failed in this regard, indeed I think you'd have to be a regular of long-standing to see the joins at all.

Perhaps the most significant change at the Plough would have been when the front Tap Room (see image below) was extended into what was originally the cellar (image above). I wonder how much grumbling emanated from the locals when this idea was first mooted, though it's hard to imagine how the pub would have survived to this day without the subsequent doubling of trading space which resulted.

The history of the Plough is written large on the walls of the pub, a fascinating photographic journey through several generations of locals, licensees, and their many sporting and gaming pursuits. Currently, it's Shooting which seems to plays a large part in the activities of both the village and the pub, though Darts and Dominoes are also popular if the stack of Cribbage Boards and Tiles seen below are anything to go by.

The Plough of the 21st century remains thoroughly relevant to both villagers and visitors, with an excellent reputation for beer, cider, and Thai food.

This fabulous image is reproduced with the kind permission of John Clarke of the Little Downham Community Archive, and features George Green in front of the Pitch Penny bench in the bar of the Plough sometime around the 1940's or 50's. Sadly, as with the vast majority of pubs where this simple bar-room game was once played, the bench is now long gone and the game all-but forgotten. A good example of a Pitch Penny bench still in use can be found at the Jackson Stops Inn, Rutland, and another fine bench at The Bull in Essex is featured on the Pints & Pubs blog.

A set of Steel Quoits sit rusting by the stove. The game of Quoits was once played throughout the country, and still clings on as a league game in nearby Ipswich. Note the Yard of Ale behind, a pub game which has never to my knowledge been played at league level! The trophies are for Shooting.

The last date for the winner of the Little Downham Conker Championship appears to be around the mid 90's. Sadly, it doesn't take much for a village tradition like this to come to an untimely end, or for a defunct tradition to be successfully re-booted for that matter!

 

This photograph, which hangs above the stove in the bar, shows a game of Dwyle Flunking (or Flonking) in progress on the green opposite the Plough. Perhaps the least said about this particular drinking game the better, since as traditions go this one has the distinct whiff of pastiche about it. A raucous amalgamation of Morris Dancing and school playground game, it is widely believed that this Suffolk pastime was invented in the 1960's, during the height of interest in all things Goon-ish or Monty Python-esque. The game is listed amongst many other examples of British eccentricity on Montegue Blister's Strange Games blog.

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A Pair of Pubs in Milton, Cambridgeshire

Waggon & Horses

The village of Milton lies to the North of Cambridge, and seems unusually well served with pubs for its size. The Cambridge area, and Milton in particular, is one of several minor hotbeds of the game of Bar Billiard.

This is perhaps a legacy of the city's large University population, since Bar Billiards (and of course Table Football) were once very popular with students. Indeed a good few of the tables now found in other parts of the country will have originated in Students Union Bars or pubs which were popular with students. The Bar Billiards at the Swan & Rushes in Leicester is an example of a table which had previously been played and serviced in the university town of Oxford.

The Waggon & Horses and White Horse in the village come fully equipped with Bar Billiard tables, and field teams in the two divisions of the Cambridge & District League.

A Devil Amongst The Tailors at the Waggon & Horses is small by pub standards, but of good quality and probably made by Jaques as it resembles their larger 'League Brand' table in all but size. These tables were available to licensees as part of an initiative to 'Bring Back Pub Games!' by the then owners of the Ruddles Brewery brand. Three games were available, including a brewery branded Shove Ha'penny which occasionally crops up in pubs, and a garden Quoits set, more of a family amusement than a true pub game.

Dominoes, fine Elgoods Ales, and Cassels Cider are also available at the pub, as is a Shove Ha'penny, though the licensee couldn't track it down on my visit.

The White Horse

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A Compendium of Pub Games Images - Pt 16

The Chestnut is a friendly and vibrant local, tucked away in a leafy residential area of Worcester. It's an interesting pub, run by an enthusiastic (and slightly eccentric) landlord. A recent addition to the bar is a full size Pine Pulpit, and afternoons can be spent browsing the extensive vinyl collection, with a record deck available to play whatever takes your fancy. This huge slate Shove Ha'penny was rescued from another pub and the landlord would love to see it get more use (though you may have to take your own half pennies). Alternatively, there's a Devil Amongst The Tailors for skittles fans.

There's a sign in the bar of the Rose & Crown in Oundle promising 'Darts and Dominoes Every Wednesday Night'. Sadly the rattle of Dominoes is no longer a weekly feature, but the Darts Board is still in situ and available to play.

Cribbage Boards, old and some not so old. The Pleasantime 'Once Around' Two Lane Cribbage Board on the left is American and from around the 1950's. It comes complete with a lovely set of wooden pegs, and a folded sheet giving the Basic Rules of Cribbage. The Crown and Anchor board has the look and simple charm of a homemade affair. The holes are huge for a crib board, and the pub name has been simply added using a letter punch of the type commonly used to mark woodworking tools.

Another well maintained, clean and tidy, yet cosy and full of character back-street village local. The Railway Inn at Ketton, Rutland, bucks the trend for upmarket, food driven, and largely characterless pubs which are becoming all too common in my experience, particularly in rural areas. I've lost count of the number of times a historic pub exterior merely dresses up a bland, stripped out interior. All blond wood laminate flooring and late 20th century brown leather sofas, more Swedish furniture store than traditional British pub in character. Thankfully, there are still pubs like the Railway, which along with the village shop is the true hub of the community. It's quite small within, which presumably accounts for being a drinkers pub rather than one noted for food. Despite its diminutive size, league Pool, Darts, Cribbage and Dominoes are all played at the Railway. Quite an achievement for a pub of any size these days.

Silver Medals like the one shown below were once quite a common reward for success in league and cup games play. I've seen examples for everything from Dominoes to Quoits and Skittles, sometimes hallmarked, occasionally even featuring a gold element. All I know about this one is that it was presented in 1949 to an F. Souster for some measure of success in Darts. It's a shame there's not a little more information about the league/competition, and what exactly the achievement would have been that the medal was presented for.

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