The Newshouse, Nottingham

I mentioned in my previous post that the centre of Nottingham, in common with many large towns and cities, may not be a happy hunting ground for traditional pub games. But there are exceptions, and the Newshouse on Canal Street is a good example.

I suppose if I was looking for a pub in Nottingham with a decent pint and the possibility of a few pub games, the ever expanding estate of the Castle Rock Brewery would be a good place to start. If ever there were an advert for the fact that old fashioned pub values, done very well and with an eye to the future, really are the secret to longevity in the pub trade, Castle Rock pubs are it. Thoroughly forward looking, but not forgetting what pubs are supposed to be about, which is the thoroughly traditional business of social intercourse.

The Newshouse is a handy pub for the rail station and the Broadmarsh bus terminus. Frequented by a good mix of locals and local office workers, it's the latter who are perhaps the most enthusiastic users of the many pub games on offer. The Bar Billiards Table is believed to be one of only two in the city, the other located at another Castle Rock pub just up the road.

The Devil Amongst The Tailors is currently missing its ball! Behind the bar, the various paraphernalia of games play are kept safe, including the set of Mushrooms for the Bar Billiards Table.

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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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Red Lion, Rothwell, Northants

There are two hotbeds of the Northamptonshire Table Skittles game in Rothwell. The all conquering Conservative Club, where you throw under the steely gaze of the Iron Lady herself, and the sturdy stone edifice of the Red Lion Hotel, both of which are located in the heart of this attractive Northamptonshire village.

Year in, year out, it's the 'A' team at the Connie Club who are the ones to beat, regularly winning both the League, Beer Leg, and a good few of the Knockout cups. The Red Lion 'A' team are pretty handy with a set of cheeses too, but as can be seen below, the 'B' team, who are relatively new to the league, are currently entrusted with the venerable Phipps-NBC Summer Skittles League Wooden Spoon. It's a fact of league play that someone has to have this piece of wood each year, indeed my local the Red Lion in Middleton (currently closed), had a wooden spoon over the bar for a short time, as well as a small selection of more honourable trophies.

Some of the trophies from the Friday Winter League can be seen in an image from the Market Harborough Mail which I've linked to here. I'm pleased to say that the Mail still regularly features the league tables and end of season presentations for Skittles, as well as for several other pub games including Cribbage and Darts:

Teams bag the Benels booty at league prizegiving - Sport - Harborough Mail

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The Lord Harrowby, Grantham, Lincs

The Lord Harrowby in Grantham is a really fine example of a well run back-street local. It's unpretentious urban boozers like this that represent the very best of the British pub tradition in my mind, yet sadly it's this category of pub which has suffered the most from closures in recent years.

A pub which is located a little off the beaten track is often the least well equipped to deal with falling local trade.

Without the reliable footfall which many high street pubs enjoy, the possibility of reinvention as a smart food driven venue or circuit drinking establishment, may not be an option. The Lord Harrowby has managed to maintain a good local following by not only specialising in a range of fine local ales, but by supporting a number of popular pub games. As can be seen from the pictures below, Darts, Pool, Cribbage, and Dominoes are played at the pub, with plenty of trophies to indicate success in the local leagues.



This handsome vintage Billiards/Snooker scoreboard was rescued from a nearby RAF base on its recent closure. It would probably have graced the games room attached to the officers mess. Of course a scoreboard is not strictly needed for Pool, but it's a fine addition to the games room nevertheless.



These colour coded sliding panels would have been used for recording the progress of a game similar to Killer, which would have been played for small stakes, and was very popular at one time. Up to eight players would have been allocated a coloured ball each, and would have lost one of three lives whenever a player pocketed that ball during the game. It would of course still be possible to play this game on a Pool table, though only if an older set of striped/spotted multi-coloured balls could be found, as opposed to the Yellow and Red balls which are the standard now.



This handsome shield for Darts was presented to the pub over 40 years ago, and is kept well polished in the games room.

The lifeblood of many a locals pub, the Cards, Dominoes, and Cribbage Boards are well used in the Lord Harrowby. The tin contains a selection of pegs for the Crib Boards.

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Two More Shove Ha'pennys

This Shove Ha'penny Board was purchased recently in Wisbech, and was in a fairly neglected state, though still perfectly playable. The surface of the board was thinly varnished, a finish I don't find lends itself to the smooth slide of a coin. A little time with a bottle of varnish stripper and a some fine sandpaper has got the surface back to the wood. It's now been waxed and polished, and though not the finest of boards, it now has a pretty smooth playing surface.

This image shows that the board has been constructed from plywood as opposed to solid timber. Unfortunately, there has been some water damage to a section of the leading edge, causing the ply to discolour and lift a little. Nothing a bit of wood glue and a g-clamp won't put right though.

Glevum Games were based in Gloucester from 1894 until their takeover and closure by Chad Valley in the late 1950's. The company were best known for their family and childrens games, but also made two sizes of Oak Shove Ha'penny, as well as this cheaper plywood board. This board is likely to be a post-war model.

This nice old board at the Bustard Inn, South Rauceby in Lincs, shows another way of making a Shove Ha'penny from cheaper cuts of timber. The body of the board has been made from a row of battens, with a laminate sheet for the playing surface. The Bustard has several old games which are available for play on Saturday afternoons, and I hope to feature a few of them on here at a later date.

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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.

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The Railway Inn, Oakham, Rutland

Oakham is a town blessed with a pretty decent variety of pubs and bars. My favourites include the Grainstore and White Lion for their wide range of interesting ales, and the recently opened Lord Nelson for a more upmarket food and beer experience. If it's an unpretentious locals pub I'm after, and I usually am, I often end up in the comfort of the Railway Inn, a stones throw from the rail station itself. What sets pubs like the Railway apart from some other town centre boozers, is the effort which the owners put in to keep the pub in good order, and the bar ticking over with a loyal local trade. Functions, live music, televised sport, and the familiar pub games of Pool and Darts are the bedrock of pubs like the Railway.

Dominoes and cards are also played at the pub, with several green felt table toppers dotted around the bar for the purpose. One curiosity of pub gaming, and the only one I've come across in the area outside of Stamford, is a well-worn Shove Ha'penny, a Jaques of London board, sadly little used these days. A collection of old Ha'pennies are kept behind the bar for the asking, though they could do with a bit of a polish to be honest. It's a nice board in a nice pub, in need of a little more use I'd say.

The Grainstore has a well used Darts Board, though like the Railway and White Lion, it's use is confined to the pubs own competition as no league is currently in operation in the town.

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