Red Lion, Kegworth, Leicestershire

Wonderfully traditional in appearance, the Red Lion is a multi-roomed Georgian village pub, and noted ale house featuring a wide range of real ales. In common with many genuine 'locals' pubs, traditional games feature strongly. These include Dominoes and Cribbage, as well as league Darts, and Pétanque in the Summer months. There is also a seperate Skittle Alley/Function Room, though sadly this is now rarely used for skittles.
http://www.kegworthredlion.co.uk/

The cosy front bar of the Red Lion, one of three distinct areas which surround the servery, this one housing the well used Darts Board. 

  

The match play Darts Board is only used for league fixtures, the board shown here is available for casual play. The main body of the board has been rotated, and the wire scoring ring re-fixed to even out wear. The original position of the 20 bed, target of the most arrows, can now be seen as the 14 bed, although the licensee did suggest that the 1 and 5 had actually seen the most wear!



The Skittle Alley at the Red Lion is housed in a former store, a separate building adjacent to the car park. Since there are no leagues in play in the Kegworth area, the alley gets little use these days.

The pins are of a kind most often seen in the Derbyshire area. The distinctive metal bands around the bottom of the pins, and the presence of a hatted 'Kingpin' (which more correctly should be at the front of the diamond pattern) are typical of a game which is often played outdoors during the Summer, with the 'alley' often sited in the car park.

 

Three beachwood balls (bowls) are used in this version of skittles. In the traditional game the balls are delivered as a 'full toss', though allowed to bounce once a short distance in front of the nearest pin. I'm not sure how practical this would be in the Red Lion's alley.



Scoreboards and Rakes, the paraphernalia of Pétanque



A basket of Boules



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The Talbot Inn, Gretton, Northamptonshire

Skittles Tables are still fairly common in the pubs and clubs of Northamptonshire, somewhat less so in Leicestershire as far as I can tell. If the game itself isn't played as regularly as it once was, and sometimes not at all at league level, then at least the tables are for the most part still in situ, available for casual play, and ready for a league revival should enough players show interest.

Certainly there will have been many tables lost over the years, but equally when a pub closes, or the table becomes an unwanted piece of furniture, the skittles table will often be relocated to another venue, sometimes along with the current teams. In so doing, a certain amount of continuity has been maintained in the game, where other pub games have fallen by the wayside. The Talbot Inn, Gretton, is a pub with demonstrable continuity of skittles play. Not only has it played host to a local competition since the 70's, but it was also one of a handful of pubs listed as having a table in Timothy Finn's 'Pub Games of England', published in 1975.

Pool, Darts, and Northamptonshire Table Skittles, the holy trinity of pub gaming in the county.

An original W.T. Black & Son 'League Brand' skittles table, one of probably hundreds dotted in and around the county of Northamptonshire.

The Talbot field teams in the local Summer and Winter leagues , but the handsome George Boon Memorial Shield is a singles tournament which has been competed for by locals at the pub for around 35 years.

 

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The Old Pheasant, Glaston, Rutland

Looking at these images you'd perhaps be forgiven for thinking the Old Pheasant was some kind of pub games classic. The kind of rural gem in which it would be easy to lose an afternoon pocketing balls on the vintage Billiards Table, sinking a few beers with friends, with little to disturb the peace other than the gentle rattle of the Dominoes and Skittles. Sadly this isn't quite the case.

The old heart of this village pub still exists as a comfortable bar facing the busy A47, but the reality is this is little more than a good hotel bar now, and a fairly modern hotel at that. Muzak is the background rather than Dominoes, and despite the comfort of the seating, a very good range of beers and cider, and the promise of a real fire in the Winter, it's just not the kind of bar where you expect to see a gaggle of locals bent over the Devil Amongst The Tailors, or any of the games for that matter. I suspect that the wealth of games on offer have been provided more for the benefit of hotel guests than locals, at least it seemed that way when I visited.

Despite this, the beer is good, and I would certainly recommend a game on the Bar Billards table, which is surely a bargain at a Shilling a play!

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Sondes Arms, Rockingham

Pétanque is a game I know little about to be honest. What I do know is that it's similar (or the same) as the French game of Boules, it's generally played at pubs, it's certainly growing in popularity, and it's big in Englands smallest county, Rutland.

The Rutland & District Pétanque League website claims there are over 50 teams playing Pétanque in and around Rutland, a fact I don't find in the least bit surprising. When you start to look for the distinctive gravelled Piste on which Pétanque is played, you come to realise that they are actually more common than you'd think. It's a game which seems well suited to the predominantly rural pubs of Rutland, a garden game like the Oxfordshire game of Aunt Sally, though perhaps more gentile in nature.

The Pétanque season is now well underway, and games can be seen on Tuesday evenings throughout the Summer. I'd like to thank the Sondes Arms 'B' team for kindly allowing me to photograph a practise session at the pub, a slightly surreal experience as it was accompanied by a couple of chaps practising their Bagpipes in a nearby field!

http://www.rutlandpetanque.com/

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Shove Ha'penny - An Affordable Game

Here we have the kind of cheap-as-chips old Shove Ha'penny board which appears quite regularly on eBay, and occasionally in antique shops for not very much money. It's quite a lightweight board, probably made from Teak as opposed to the more expensive Mahogany or Oak, and even then the construction is from several 2 inch width lengths of timber glued together rather than a single solid piece of wood. Having said that, it's possible this may be a better method of construction with regard to any possible warping, and it's been done well enough, you have to look quite closely to see the joins. The scoring areas at the side are simply painted black, and though the brass end rail is a nice touch, it's been tacked on in a fairly rudimentary way.

It's perhaps worth mentioning that this isn't the cheapest board on the market. Of course it's quite possible to make a good homemade board for little more than the cost of the timber, and there are also affordable modern boards available which are made from veneered particle board, and which do the job more than adequately.

I suppose the point of a board like this is that it is cheap, and therefore well within the reach of even the most limited resources. A modestly priced board also has the advantage of being less precious than a highly polished solid Mahogany model, and therefore more usable in a pub environment. Even the old Half Pennies are common enough, and often included in the sale. So there's no good reason why every half-decent boozer couldn't have a Shove Ha'penny tucked away behind the bar, ready for play on request...

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Admiral Nelson, Market Harborough

A pub often described as Market Harboroughs best kept secret, the Admiral Nelson is tucked away in a residential area and yet only a short stroll from the town centre. It's certainly worth the detour, though be sure to check the opening hours. The current weekday opening is set at 3pm, but this is liable to change depending on trade. 


The Northants table was procured from Joules Yard, an old established reclamation business in the town which is home to at least one other table and an old Shove Ha'penny board, though sadly not for sale. The table has been installed upstairs in the function room, and is slightly unusual in that the bed appears to be a little deeper than other tables I've thrown on.

 

This Cheese bears the markings of Market Harborough, possibly originating from the Conservative Club. The pub team have seen some success in the Fleckney & District 'A' Section, as well as the Kibworth & District League during the Winter season (see below).

The Admiral Nelson currently field teams in the Fleckney & District League (Friday), and the Market Harborough & District Summer League (Tuesday) from which this winning scoreboard can be seen. The match was won 48-27, and the individual scores chalked up here are from the Beer Leg. On this table the position of the skittles on the table are marked with a ring of copper pin heads.

 



Games are the lifeblood of pubs like the Admiral Nelson. The bar area houses the usual Pool and Darts, and the licensee is also on the look out for a Bar Billiards table.



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Red Cow, Market Harborough

The Red Cow is a pub I remember well from the late 80's as a diminutive, blue-smokey, local drinkers pub. A bit of a male preserve it has to be said. A place for a sociable pint or three, horse racing on the telly, and for many men (myself included!) a welcome haven from the drudgery of shopping in the very heart of the market town of Harborough.

Not too much has changed since the days when this was an ultra-traditional Marston's Brewery house.  It's still a small pub, little more than a front bar and games area, and still very much for the sociable activity of beer drinking. It's quite possible that there are more Darts Boards than there were previously, numbering three on my recent visit, including one in its own dedicated alcove. The Northamptonshire Skittles Table is a fairly recent addition to the pub, though whether this is a return or something entirely new I couldn't say. The table itself is a well-worn specimen, having seen plenty of action at the now closed Trades & Labour Club up the road. In addition to the Darts, the pub participates in local Cribbage and Dominoes Leagues, though I was told the Dominoes is struggling and may not survive for another season.

 



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