Hertfordshire Bar Billiards

[Q]

More from the same article as above...

For example, it doesn't list either of the pubs in St Albans with tables. We visited one, The Goat, on our St Albans pub crawl last month

Well, Herts is really Katie country, where he started out.

I can remember going to support John Slee in an inter-counties game in the 1970's and Hertfordshire took part then. Katie must have been in their team at the time, a mere teenager whippersnapper.

Begs the question, did bar billiards vanish from Herts after Katie moved to Oxon, or before (as he was so damned good) ? ;D

Returning to Q's one he found in Hertfordshire, here are three more:

Our Mutual Friend Public House, Broadwater Crescent, Stevenage, Hertfordshire
The Goat, 37 Sopwell Lane, St. Albans, Hertfordshire (correct as at April 2008)
The White Swan, Upper Dagnall Street, St. Albans, Hertfordshire (correct as at April 2008)

A couple of interesting articles concerning a possible revival in Hertfordshire being prompted by CAMRA:

www.hertsale.org.uk/newsletter/pov224.pdf
www.hertsale.org.uk/newsletter/pov225.pdf

KT is mentioned in the first one, though Herts seem to have disowned him - maybe they weren't aware of his roots!
In the second article an interesting reference to the game in Jersey in 1972, where one player used to play the table out going "in-off" the 200 mushroom!

[Q]

I'm not sure if that constitutes a revival Clive??
Both articles are over 3 years old ::)

True, but we're constantly on the trail of evidence of bar billiards matches being played outside of our little universe............  And there was mention of a North Herts v East Beds challenge game (won by East Beds).

Map of  tables in Herts & Beds for ready reference (click on URL below):

maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201756322675068450682.000485981969d13618db1&msa=0&ll=51.935799,-0.300751&spn=0.424191,1.234589

Evidence of play at the Strathmore Arms, Hitchin:

www.camranorthherts.org.uk/2011/07/minibus-ramble-south-of-hitchin/p1100059/

Interesting blog from our new member SquireRichard:

hamandeggerfiles.blogspot.com/2012/01/another-new-game-played-bar-billiards.html

[squirerichard]

Thanks for the link to my blog post about Bar Billiards :-)

My wife and I really enjoyed our first games. Hopefully more to follow...

[squirerichard]

I've been tweeting about Bar Billiards and someone in Baldock let me know that The Orange Tree pub there has a table! www.theorangetreebaldock.com/

The pub staff confirmed it too - twitter.com/#!/Orange_Tree_Bdk/status/164115073021911042

[squirerichard]

We popped to The Bucks Head pub in Little Wymondley (near Stevenage) yesterday. They no longer have a Bar Billiards table - the barman said it was costing them far more to rent than they were taking from it.

They do however still offer Dominoes, Cards & Cribbage for customers. Nice and friendly village pub.

Thanks SquireRichard and sorry you had a wasted journey.

Such information is however invaluable to us in maintaining an up-to-date map, and it's great to have a man on the spot in one of the more obscure areas where the game was once played to a high level.

[squirerichard]

No problem.

Hoping to get to another pub in Studham (although that's Central Beds) to have a game at the weekend  :)

[squirerichard]

I rang around a few pubs before heading out today. I found out that The Red Lion in Studham no longer has a Bar Billiards Table. Neither does The Bedford Arms in Hitchin, they've changed to a Pool table.

I called The Chequers Inn at Knebworth too - they do still have a table and the baize has recently been relaid. I'll be heading there for a game soon...

No answer from Our Mutual Friend pub in Stevenage.

Thanks again, Squire Richard.  All useful information from our "Herts & Beds" agent. ;D
will get the two lost venues taken off the map.

tommo.

[squirerichard]

Feb 11, 2012 12:22:47 GMT tommo III said:

Thanks again, Squire Richard.  All useful information from our "Herts & Beds" agent. ;D
will get the two lost venues taken off the map.

tommo.

No problem.

We played the tables at The Orange Tree in Baldock and at The Chequers Inn, Knebworth on Saturday.

The Orange Tree table was the best of the two.

Full 'report' at hamandeggerfiles.blogspot.com/2012/02/bar-billiards-in-baldock-knebworth.html

That's a great blog, SquireRichard, very informative.

It is strange and interesting that the two pubs you visited in the same county play the two separate versions of the game.

The three known 4-Pin leagues in the country are Wellingborough (Nthnts), Norwich and Sudbury, which form a sort of arc around Herts - but then you also have the magnetic pull from Bucks to the west and Cambs and the rest of Northants to the north which play the standard 3-Pin.

Anyway, I'll change the Chequers on the map to a black mushroom (= non-league 4-pin table).

Keep up the good work !


tommo

[squirerichard]

No problem. Glad you liked the blog post :-)

I've noted down the other locations in Herts & Beds and noticed there is one in Bucks too. I'll try and get to them all at some point during the summer. Fingers crossed they've got some nice Beer gardens and fingers crossed my wife will drive to some of them too!

I'm going to be in London soon so will try and get a few games in as well. Got some friends there that are also interested in giving Bar Billiards a go.

[squirerichard]

Reading the Sunday Mirror today I noticed a story on page 31 'Beer and Skittles' about Pub Games and their rise in popularity.

Bar Billiards gets a few mentions, including a quote from the Landlord of the Goat Inn in St Albans.

It's a very similar article to one in the Mail a couple of months ago, but very good that the Goat gets a mention.

I hope to be paying a visit to the Orange Tree myself sometime this year....I have cousins and an ageing uncle who live in Letchworth (within 2 miles of Baldock).  

Blog on visit to 2 b/b venues in Herts:
golfsporti.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/bar-billiards-in-baldock-knebworth.html

[squirerichard]

Feb 26, 2012 19:39:54 GMT tommo III said:

I hope to be paying a visit to the Orange Tree myself sometime this year....I have cousins and an ageing uncle who live in Letchworth (within 2 miles of Baldock).  

Good stuff. I always enjoy a trip to Letchworth - home to the UK's first roundabout - twitpic.com/28hovv. There's a great Fish & Chip shop there too called Cox's.

[squirerichard]

Emily and I headed to St Albans yesterday and managed to play the Bar Billiards table at The Goat Inn. Very good it was too. We introduced another of our friends to the game as well.

Blog about it here hamandeggerfiles.blogspot.com/2012/03/barmy-bar-billiards-trail-takes-us-to.html

Thanks once again, Squire Richard.

An interesting point to note is that both the Goat and the White Swan were former "Rental" tables from Bar Billiards Ltd, Ascot (who have now ceased operations).

They appeared on the list of tables where rental was to be discontinued and a "decision was needed" but were the only two in Hertfordshire.

The decision was whether the venue wished to take over ownership of the table for £850 plus VAT - or to simply return the table. So it looks like the White Swan was returned, whilst the Goat was rescued. Both were top-quality Jelkes tables, and you can see the "Bar Billiards Ltd" plate on your picture of the Goat table.

tommo

   

[squirerichard]

No problem. Will be heading to London to hunt down a few more tables next week too :-)

Looking forward to reading further blogs.

Here's a map showing the London venues only:
maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201756322675068450682.000485981969d13618db1&msa=0&ll=51.503186,-0.266418&spn=0.224821,0.617294

I have been concentrating on the Southern and Eastern parts of the city, so the old 'Middlesex' has been neglected as regards investigations, and I probably wouldn't get round to those for a few more years.

I suppose a series of phonecalls would provide definite results, but that rather takes the fun out of the adventure !  

[squirerichard]

You're right about the phoning around - not worth missing out on an 'adventure', unless the table is in the middle of nowhere!

[squirerichard]

Our travels today took us to the Hemel Hempstead area so we called into The White Lion pub in Apsley, Hemel Hempstead only to find they no longer have a Bar Billiards table.

It looks like the pub has had a refurb fairly recently. It's nice enough. There is a dartboard in there, but the barman couldn't find any 'arrers for us to play with.

I got very excited at stumbling over this article from CAMRA Hertfordshire's Newletter Number 32 - before I realised that it was written in 1980! :o ::)


Bar Billiards
As promised last month I will print a list of all known (to me that is) pubs with bar billiards tables. Sadly I have received few replies even though there are still quite a number of tables in the county. First a little of the history of the game....
Although the game developed from much earlier versions of billiards,  the form we know now was first seen as Billiards Russe (Russian Billiards) in Belgium in the late 1920s. When the game was brought over to England in the 30s  the  name was changed because of the unpopularity of the Russians at that time. Things change very little it seems. Since Bar Billiards Ltd registered the name as their own, other manufacturers had to choose others and so the terms Skittle Billiards and Snookerette came into use. Although there are slight variations  in the rules from area to area, such as in the positioning  of the 'skittles', the rules remain essentially the same.

Pubs in Hertfordshire  with tables include:
the Chequers and the Red Lion at Woolmer Green,
the Robin Hood and Little John at Rabley Heath near Welwyn;
The Rose and Crown, Aston near Stevenage;  
the Sele Arms and the  Dimsdale Arms,  both  in  Hertford;
the  Prince  of  Wales, Hertingfordbury;  
the King William, Hoddesdon;  
the North Star, Welwyn;
and the Acorn, St. Albans.

A number of clubs also have them, in particular the Thomas Mercer Sports and Social Club, St. Albans, who are not only
interested in joining a league but also sell real ale to boot!
Anyone who would like to try the game can do no better than to come along to the South herts - Mid Chilterns branches
joint social and ioin in (see What's On).
lf anyone is interested  in  joining a league l already have a number of interested people.
lf you know of a table somewhere get some friends together and form a team.
Contact me via the newsletter  and we'll see if we can form the first Hertfordshire  Bar Billiards League - certainly  the first for many years.


Still, there's some rich material here for both Squire Richard and myself: a few extra for me to investigate on the internet !

A more up-to-date report - article from "Herts Ale", 2007

Bar Billiards — Hertfordshire’s Endangered Species
Following on from last edition’s article on the threat to darts and the campaign launched to make it more available in our pubs, consider another of our once-loved pub games — bar billiards.  In its heyday this game could be found in so many of our best local pubs, tucked away in a small room or in a recess of the bar but now only a handful of Hertfordshire pubs sport a table.
The game shone brightest locally in the 1950s and 1960s when there were local and county leagues and tournaments, but
was gradually swept aside in the ensuing forty years by the onslaught of American pool.    
So what is bar billiards, where did it come and what is the current state of play?
Bar Billiards is a table game played with cues and by potting balls into 9 holes that carry differing points tariffs. All shots are taken from one end of the table, from a small D shaped area and it is called bar billiards because a wooden bar drops after a time limit (usually        up to 17 minutes in England  — though 15 minutes in the Channel Islands) preventing any more balls becoming available for use.  There are seven white balls and one red which counts for double points. In the leagues there are three skittles or mushrooms placed on the table — two white, one black — the capsizing of which will forfeit a break (white) or an entire score (black). Elsewhere tables with four skittles might be
found.  The game’s current strongest bastion of support can be found in the Channel Islands and in English counties along the Channel, from Kent round as far as Hampshire, then up through Berkshire to Oxfordshire and Northants. Here
leagues still exist and it is from Oxfordshire where the current and triple world champion, Kevin Tunstall, hails. The annual British Isles and World Championships are held in Jersey.  For those of you who play the game, the world’s
highest score, in a competitive match, is 29,000 - scored in just over 17 minutes - try getting anywhere near that!
As with so many of our pub games, its history cannot be drilled down to one clear moment of birth but in the early 1930s an Englishman called David Gill came across a game called Russian Billiards being played in Belgium (thought to be called this to make it sound more exotic).  He convinced the English manufacturer Jelkes to make a version of the game
and soon pubs were queuing to buy them, and other makers were helping to meet the demand.  The game swiftly gained popularity — the first league appearing in Oxfordshire in 1936.  Today, the game is administered by the  All England Bar Billiards Association, and it is worth investigating their website;   www.aebba.btinternet.co.uk  to find out more.  If you are a publican reading this and you’ve been toying with the idea of installing a table, just sift through the web — there are quite a few companies hiring or selling tables.