The Locomotive, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire

The market town of Wellingborough is located at the very heart of the Northamptonshire Skittles area, giving its name to a local league as well as being the former base for G.J Pepper, fabricator of many of the skittles tables still to be found in the area (including the one shown here at The Locomotive).

In common with many similarly sized towns in Northamptonshire, the local game has now retreated to just a couple of pubs and perhaps just a single club. Most of the existing venues which play in the Wellingborough & District Skittles League can now be found in the surrounding small towns and villages, particularly those centred around nearby Rushden which itself hosts a Thursday Four-A-Side league.

Of the venues where skittles is still played in the town, The Locomotive is interesting in that it also fields a team in the Wellingborough & District Bar Billiards League, much shrunk in recent years but still with eight teams playing in the 2012/13 season.