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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Bat & Wickets, Northampton

The current licensees of the Bat & Wickets have recently celebrated their first year at the helm of this traditional back-street local. I'd have to say that the last time I passed this way, the pub looked pretty uninviting from the outside, but a lot has changed since then. A fresh paint job, new bespoke frosted glass windows, and attractive new signage, all of which are thoroughly in keeping with the age and traditional character of the pub. The landlord has even sourced a couple of vintage Burtonwood Brewery pub lanterns for the frontage of the pub, conveniently liveried 'BW' to match the pub name.

Work is also progressing at a steady pace inside the pub, sensitively refurbishing and modernising the neglected interior without destroying any of the essential character of the place. The patio beer garden at the rear has also been given a freshen-up, and is now a delightful space for a Summer afternoon drink. Pub games still play an important role at the Bat & Wickets, and I'd highly recommend a visit to the pub if only to give the Skittles Table a work-out. This traditional Northamptonshire game has become very scarce in pubs this close to the town centre.

The games area is very well appointed, with Darts, Pool and a fine W T Blacks Skittles Table tucked into the corner. The locals are active in a number of leagues, including Ladies and Mens skittles, and a Thursday Pool league. The pub also supports local football, and hosts a very active Golfing crowd.

The pub's slightly unusual name apparently derives from its close proximity to the Racecourse Public Park, where Cricket and other team sports have been played since the post-war years. The main sporting interest at the Bat & Wickets now is the game of Golf. Several competitions and trophies are competed for at the pub, which includes the largest collection of Wooden Spoons I've ever seen in one place! One corner of the bar, shown below, is devoted to numerous golfing trophies and a series of wall plaques which record individual honours dating from the late 80's.

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Three Horseshoes, Warham, Norfolk

Living, as I do, in land-locked Northamptonshire, the rare heat of a hot Summer weekend often sparks a yearning for the seaside. I think it's a common affliction, this desire for a Summer sea view, but sadly in my experience the reality of an English seaside resort rarely lives up to the rose-tinted promise. Too busy, too hot, too much eye-popping kitsch and unhealthy fried food. This was my recent experience of Wells-next-the-Sea, a pleasant coastal resort in many ways but all of the above and more on one of the hottest weekends of the year. Pretty soon my yearning for the sea turned to the more pressing need of a cool, calm, quiet retreat, and the Three Horseshoes in the lovely village of Warham provided it in (buckets &) spades.

Unspoilt heritage pubs like the Three Horseshoes, particularly when located in such attractive and popular tourist areas as the Norfolk Coast, can all too often end up being little more than busy tourist traps on fine Summer weekends. Not so much the wrong crowd (I'm a tourist here myself after all), as just a little too many of them all at once. The Horseshoes was certainly busy enough when I visited, yet happily it still retained an air of calm efficiency, and a proper 'locals' feel befitting such a fine example of an English village pub. In fact it was a real pleasure to spend time there, particularly after the hectic 'pleasures' of the seaside.

The tidy gas-lit bar is the heart of the Three Horseshoes (as well as the equally tidy garden in the Summer months). Local beer and cider are stillaged in the deep servery which was originally a snug adjoining the bar area. The pub has expanded a fair bit since then, but everything is thoroughly in keeping with the original unspoilt bar area. You can find more details of this pub on CAMRA's Heritage Pubs website.

It's in the bar area that you'll find the pubs one and only traditional game, and unusually it's neither a Darts Board nor a Pool Table. What the pub does have is something local and really quite rare in the form of a Twister, otherwise known as a Twizzler or Norfolk Wheel. These unusual 'wheels of fortune' are found almost exclusively in the Anglian region, and you'll usually find them located on the ceiling in the handful of pubs where they still survive. It's believed this is to help reduce any chance of players cheating during a game. By mounting the wheel on the ceiling, where it's only playable at full stretch and in clear view of every player, it would be very difficult to 'rig' the spin in any way. This would have been an important feature in the days when wagers on the game may have been that much higher than today.

The wheel at the Three Horseshoes is one of the simpler examples of those which survive, and possibly one of the oldest. Some have more numbers and may also be embellished with various symbols used for forfeits or variations on the basic game of chance. This one is simply numbered 1-12, and therefore most closely resembles a simple Roulette style of game. I understand you're welcome to a 'twizzle' with your pint, but like all games of chance in the pub, low stakes only would be the accepted rule.

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Skittles - Not Just A Pub Game

The current trend for all things 'Pop-Up', including shops, restaurants, and even pubs, is like most new ideas, simply an old idea renamed for a new generation. The fact is, Pop-Up pubs have been appearing at Village Fetes and other community events for generations, named simply, and in the parlance of the time, the Beer Tent. The traditional credentials of this age-old Pop-Up Pub phenomena are often enhanced by a range of traditional Pop-Up Pub Games, with Skittles in all its myriad forms being a particular Fete-day favourite.

There's a fair bit of gaming crossover between pub and Fete, with all manner of games making the transition to the village green on the day. It's perhaps surprising that traditional Fete games like Splat The Rat, Roll A Penny, and the Coconut Shy haven't made the transition from Fete to pub game in the same way. Though maybe not! Having said that, the pub game of Aunt Sally has much in common with the Coconut Shy, and originated itself as a fairground game.

Of course skittles play at Fetes is much less competitive than pub play, often with a more random element due to the terrain, and primarily for the purposes of fun and local fund raising. It can also be a great introduction to the game for youngsters who may never have encountered skittles in a pub environment before.

The table shown above is a small handmade version of a Northants/Leics Skittles Table which makes a regular appearance at Caldecott Fete. This is probably the only similar table in active use in the county of Rutland, where skittles has all-but disappeared from its increasingly upmarket and food-led pubs.

The game shown here is a lovely old 'Country Skittles' set, raising money and giving pleasure at Braybrooke Fete in Leicestershire. The 'cheeses' are similar to those used in the Leicestershire Long Alley tradition, making this an ideal trainer game for the local pub game! Setting pins like these, which are often top-heavy, can be difficult on an uneven grassy surface, but this set is purpose made for the job and come complete with a set of spiked metal discs which can be inserted into the turf for the pins to sit on.

For every Northamptonshire or Leicestershire Skittles Table still residing in a pub, and there are hundreds, it's likely that just as many are now in private hands, sometimes located in parts of the country which are very far from the games Midlands home. This W T Blacks table is in the ownership of a local resident of Little Bowden near Market Harborough in Leicestershire, and has featured at every one of the village Fetes in recent years. A similar pub table is still in active use at the Cherry Tree in the village.

Skittles at Barrowden Fete in Leicestershire is a mix-and-match of Ten Pin Bowling Alley pins and a set of old Lignum Vitae Bowls. The bias on these Bowls presumably makes for a more challenging game. The Fete takes place on the village green, and in the shadow of the Exeter Arms which is home to a brewery and the local league game of Pétanque.

The table shown here proved a popular draw with the youngsters at the annual Feast Day in Stoke Albany, Northamptonshire. I've no idea where this table originally came from. Certainly the Fox Inn at the adjacent village of Wilbarston still has a well used table, so maybe this example came from Stoke Albany's pub, the White Horse which underwent an extensive refurbishment some years ago.

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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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Hole In The Wall, Long Eaton, Derbyshire

The Hole In The Wall in Long Eaton is a real gem of a pub. A proper town centre local that's been in the same safe hands for almost 30 years. Continuity of ownership like this is becoming increasingly rare in the pub trade. It's sometimes obvious from the moment you walk into a pub whether the licensees are there for the long-term, or as is increasingly the case now, until the next upward rent review torpedoes their business plan and puts the pub back on the market.

There's little doubt in my mind that the Hole in the Wall is a long-term labour of love for the owners. Popular with the locals, yet equally welcoming to the many visitors who make a beeline to this fine back-street boozer. It's one of the very best pubs in town for beer, crammed with a fine collection of breweriana to keep the beer buffs amused, and which also contributes to a thoroughly cosy and welcoming feel throughout the pub.

It's a pub strong on games play too, with a very tidy covered Long Alley for the local game of skittles which adjoins an equally well maintained enclosed garden at the rear. There can't be many better pubs in the area to watch a hotly contested Summer League match than the garden of the Hole in the Wall.

The trough at the end of the Long Alley shows the original red brick surface of what was once stabling for the pub. The metal frame for locating the pins is set into a particularly durable aggregate, suitable for many years of  hard impact from the Applewood Balls. The balls thrown in this version of Long Alley are becoming harder to source now, so much so that perhaps they'll eventually be replaced by some form of composite ball similar to those which are increasingly seen in Western Skittles play.

The Hole in the Wall team are currently about mid-table in the 2013 Long Eaton & District Long Alley Skittles League, but as this piece of framed memorabilia shows, the pub team went unbeaten in 24 games to win the 1998 league (with only one draw apparently). Now a good team might expect to win all their home matches, but to also play so consistently well away is certainly an achievement worthy of a recording.

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The Horseshoe, Wilby, Northamptonshire

If ever there were an example of how pub skittles play can be a true force for good (bear with me, it's not as far fetched as it sounds), the hardy skittle players of The Horseshoe in Wilby might well be it. Of course team games like skittles come with inbuilt social benefits, and often play a crucial role in the success (or even survival) of many community pubs, but players and customers can also be involved through pub games in numerous charitable events, a point not lost on pub and beer campaigners CAMRA and Pub Aid in this recent press release.

When I visited The Horseshoe in April this year, a 24 Hour Charity Skittles Marathon had just taken place involving 25 players chucking through the night in a bid to raise funds for Prostaid. The eventual total raised from the overall event was a magnificent £5,000, and was such a success that it's hoped this could become an annual event. Not surprisingly, the pub itself is a real cracker, and I was made to feel very welcome by licensee Eve Jackson and the regulars at the bar.

The Northamptonshire Skittles Table is located in a separate games room adjacent to the front bar, an entirely necessary precaution given the noise generated during a lively game. I believe the black board on the left can be removed during a game creating an additional bar counter, particularly handy for those working up a thirst setting pins up in the 'Woodyard'. The skittles are set up and ready to play whenever you are and were being used for a casual game by a group of visitors to the pub when I was there.

The 'Oche' for the skittles can be seen leaning on the left-hand side of the table, an essential part of the Leicester skittles game where it is known as the Mott and usually made from steel, but an optional extra in Northamptonshire it seems.

Many venues for Northamptonshire Skittles indicate the position where the thrower needs to stand with a simple line on the floor, sometimes a brass or other metal strip. Where an Oche like this is used, it's usually the case that both feet must be within the area defined by its three wooden sides. This restricts how far to the left or right a player can stand, which is important in Northamptonshire Skittles because it's often necessary to bounce a cheese off the padded side panels in order to down a tricky pattern of pins.

The Horseshoe play their skittles in the Wellingborough & District League, with two teams currently throwing in the 1st and 3rd divisions of the Summer League.

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