A Rare Old Skittles Game in Rutland

Games have long played an important role in the English tradition of Fetes, Fayres, Feast Days etc, and traditional pub games often feature in one form or another. Long Alley and Table Skittles are particularly popular in the leafier parts of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, often using skittles and tables that have become surplus to requirements in their local pubs for one reason or another.

Several years ago I spotted a local newspaper article reporting on a Village Fete in Kent that featured photographs of children playing the traditional pub game of Daddlums. Whilst the pins and cheeses appeared to be original Boxwood examples, the table itself looked to have been recently re-upholstered, possibly newly built given that the pins and cheeses of this once popular game often seem to outlive the tables the game was played on. Something of a find nevertheless, given that only two original examples of the game are currently known to exist (a few more have been built in more recent times). Sadly I didn’t think to capture these images at the time, and I can no longer find them online. It does however highlight the kind of rarities that can pop up unexpectedly in village halls and the garages of local enthusiasts.

Every example of a rare old pub game that comes to light adds to the corpus of knowledge around an aspect of social history that rarely attracts the attention of pub enthusiasts, let alone historians. The skittles game shown here is interesting in of itself, but more so when we consider its location in an area not noted for a skittles tradition.

I came across this Skittles Table in the games area of a May Fayre in Braunstone, a small rural village close to the Market Town of Oakham in Rutland. To find a locally ‘shed-built’ skittles table at a village event like this is hardly unusual or newsworthy. What makes this example special is its similarity to a number of other games that have come to light in recent years, constituting clear evidence of a unique skittling tradition local to Leicestershire and Lincolnshire (and possibly Nottinghamshire). It only takes a casual glance at a map to see that it's no surprise we can now include Rutland in this skittling region, squeezed as it is between its much larger neighbours.

In the 1975 book 'Pub Games of England', Timothy Finn states with some authority that Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire can be considered as the north-eastern boundary of 'Hood Skittles' play, this too would presumably encompass the county of Rutland. Whilst this seems highly likely given that Northamptonshire Skittles Tables existed until very recently in pubs as close to Rutland as Great Easton, Drayton, and Rockingham, I’ve yet to find any evidence of the same in an actual Rutland pub. My feeling is that a unique skittles game, speculatively centred on the Lincolnshire town of Grantham, is a more likely candidate for Rutland, and the existence of the table shown here confirms it was certainly played in at least one Rutland pub until the middle of the 20th century.

So what do we know about this particular table and its skittles and cheeses. Well firstly it’s pretty clear that the skittle pins have been quite recently (and rather beautifully) turned-up by a craftsman. They look far too new to be original, and with hardly any wear. The inclusion of a Kingpin is slightly odd too, serving no purpose in this game to my knowledge so probably a modern affectation. From a brief discussion with a Braunstone local I understand that the table was rebuilt some 50 years ago from the remains of an original which had come from one of the two village pubs (the Blue Ball is still open, The Old Plough (below) is long closed and in the process of conversion to a residence). My feeling is that this is probably authentic to the original design and appearance of the table.

So a rebuilt table and relatively modern replacement pins, not much to go on it seems. But it’s the unusual riveted and stitched leather Cheeses that mark this game out as being special, and almost certainly from the same tradition as other examples which have come to light in the region. These cheeses are very similar to the set which I acquired in Grantham several years ago (left), originally from the long closed Hunters Arms in Wymondham which is not so far away from Braunston in Rutland. Other examples which have cropped up at auction in the region are also made from layers of thick leather, stitched and/or riveted, and of a similar size and appearance, indeed I believe my friend John Penny of the Facebook Pub Games site has a similar set.

These all-leather Cheeses are certainly unique to the area, and I've little doubt that other examples still exist, gathering dust in the loft of a pub or a locals shed somewhere. They're also extremely robust when riveted, harder to break even than the Boxwood Cheeses of the larger game. Sadly it's the tables that are less likely to have survived in my view. Unlike a Northamptonshire Skittles Table which is a substantial piece of furniture, not easily lost or ignored when a pub changes hands or closes, these smaller tables were designed to sit on a pub table in use and put away out of sight when not, therefore much more throw-away-able. On the upside they are much easier to fabricate, which should mean that these leather cheeses and hardwood skittle pins will continue to have a life in the right hands.

The Black Horse - Foxton, Leicestershire

On the increasingly rare occasions that I come across a Northamptonshire Skittles Table in a pub that I wasn’t previously aware of, it gives me hope that the game will not in fact entirely disappear in my lifetime. Talk to anyone involved in the game however, and the story remains pretty bleak. The area around North Northamptonshire, South Leicestershire and to a much lesser extent Rutland, was a true hotbed of the game when I moved to the area some 25 years ago. Perhaps half of all rural village pubs had a Skittles Table, and almost every club had at least one table. The major towns of the area, Market Harborough and Kettering, gave their names to active leagues of multiple divisions, and boasted several pubs and clubs where the game thrived, or perhaps in some cases merely survived.

My understanding is that there are now just two Skittles venues in Market Harborough, with only the Conservative Club actually participating in league play. Kettering town centre has a very well-used table at the Alexandra Arms, and perhaps another three or four in estate pubs and clubs further afield, well down on previous figures of perhaps more than a dozen. The situation in rural areas is very much worse of course. Where pubs have managed to escape closure, it's often at the expense of space for games of any kind, dining being the only realistic route to survival. All is not lost though...

The Domino in Corby has a good table now, and a Ladies team playing in the Islip League, probably the first time that Table Skittles has been played in the town's environs for decades. I also have to remind myself that these substantial, craftsman built Skittles Tables are rarely lost to the skip. When a pub closes or a table is deemed surplus to requirements, it's often rescued by the locals and removed to the safety of a garage or village hall. Perhaps awaiting the day when there's a resurgence in popularity of the game, as there most surely will be. Even now these tables occasionally reappear unexpectedly in pubs, as is the case at The Domino in Corby.

I caught sight of a venerable old Skittles Table earlier this week, and in a pub I wouldn't have expected to find the game. It was at the end of a muddy Winter canal walk from Union Wharf in Market Harborough to Foxton, a village best known for it's proximity to an impressive Lock Flight and historic Inclined Plane on the Grand Union Canal. A hugely popular destination for tourists and dog walkers, but I wasn't there for the Locks, I was aiming for a pub, the equally historic Black Horse.

The Black Horse sits at the top of the village, a stones-throw from the ancient village Church and conveniently close to a wide and well-tended footpath down to the Locks (which itself has two pubs). I hadn't been to this pub for at least 30 years, back when it was a well regarded Marston's Brewery pub. Of the two pubs in the village back then it this and the nearby Bell at Gumley that were our preferred choice. Today it was also my preference given that it's and all-day opener, a rare thing for a village pub these days, and its neighbour the Shoulder of Mutton wouldn't be open until late afternoon.

It's a nicely refurbished pub, recently under new management. The separate bar is the kind of space you could happily spend a few hours of an afternoon, and there are bar games on the windowsills like Shut The Box, Cards and Dominoes to accompany the beer. Smart but not overdone, unlike so many pub interiors now, the Black Horse still feels like an old pub and I liked it a lot.

It was on the way to the entrance that something caught my eye. Whilst the bar still has its Dartboard, across from the main body of the pub is a separate Games Room. If the Skittles Table hadn't been setup in line with the open doorway I guess I'd never have investigated, but there it was, a vintage Northamptonshire (or Leicestershire) Skittles Table, sharing space with the Pool Table.

Whilst it's always a pleasure to see a Skittles Table in a village pub, it's even better if the owner happens to be on hand for a bit of a chat. Turns out this table was rescued from the old Trades & Labour Club in Market Harborough, now long gone but I've been led to believe by those who played there that this is one of several tables the club had during the game's heyday.

Chatting with the owner of this table was like a roll-call of lost pubs, clubs and venues for the game though. He played for a team at the long-closed Horse & Trumpet in Medbourne, a former Phipps (NBC) house, thatched, Grade II listed, and a bit of a timewarp pub that many in the area remember with great fondness. Clearly a keen enthusiast of the game, I guess he'd been waiting for a chance to set this table up somewhere appropriate, somewhere it would be appreciated. Table Skittles is a noisy game of course, not suitable for dining pubs, and often difficult to accommodate even when there's a public bar, so a separate Games Room like this, not hidden away but open to all-comers, is an ideal location for the game.

The really good news though is that the pub has now got a team up for the local Kibworth League, playing for fun and clearly learning the ropes, but that will hopefully change in time. Skittles is an addictive pastime just ripe for a dose of nostalgia to bring it back into favour.

The Mason Arms, Thrapston, Northamptonshire

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but Table Skittles as a pub and club game has fallen off a cliff in the part of Leicestershire/Northamptonshire where I reside. From a position just 10 years ago where there would have been maybe 20 venues for the game within a 15 minute drive, now there's perhaps half a dozen, not all of which are in regular competitive use.

Of course it's been a long time since the game was anything like 'ubiquitous' in the area, and the game was already in steady decline as we moved into the 21st century, but the disruption to pub-going during the recent lockdowns has put the nail in the coffin for a great many skittles pubs and clubs, and consequently many of the leagues where the game is played competitively are struggling to remain sustainable.

Not all is lost though. Skittles Tables can still be found all over this part of the East Midlands, and leagues still operate if you know where to look for them, which is of course a major part of the problem. Northamptonshire Table Skittles has rarely seen much in the way of promotion by its players, and in common with a great many of our traditional pub games, those who play Skittles often regard it as just one of many, largely 'unremarkable' reasons why they go to the pub, and certainly see no reason to shout about it. It's probably time someone did shout about it though, lest the game disappear completely from pubs and clubs within our lifetime.

For myself, it's become something of a renewed pleasure, when on the increasingly rare occasions I stumble upon an old Skittles Table that I wasn't previously aware of, as I did in a market town in North Northamptonshire quite recently.

I'm a reasonably regular visitor to the attractive market town of Thrapston. Conveniently close to us, and with a particularly good Butchers, and a smart Brewery Tap for modern hop-forward beers of a hefty strength, which is where you'll usually find me. There are also four pubs with a slightly more old-fangled offering, only one of which I've had the pleasure of visiting in recent years, which is remiss of me I know...

Particularly given that Thrapston lies cheek by jowl with the village of Islip, itself now a pub-free village but significantly the birthplace of the eponymous Islip & District Skittles League. I knew that the league was still going in one form or another from a visit to The Domino pub in Corby, where a Ladies League match was in progress. Very much an outlier of the league then, but I think that represents the dearth of Skittles play in and around Corby as much as anything, The Domino being a fairly recent and very welcome convert to Northamptonshire's traditional pub game.

The Islip & District League is a much tighter affair. As can be seen on the fixture list above, the heart of the competition centres on the former Working Mens Club which fields no less than four teams. In fact this and the Rushden Four-a-Side Skittles League are run by long-serving Islip Club steward Terry Gunn.

Outside of the club there are now just three pubs with teams in the league. The aforementioned decline of the game in North Northamptonshire is clear to see, but highlighted all the more when contrasted with the same league fixture list from the 2010/11 season. This shows four teams from the Islip Club as it does now, but back then the league stretched to 24 teams playing across 3 divisions! Some of the pubs are sadly gone, and many more pubs and clubs shown no longer have a Skittles Table.

On the upside, Islip Club appears to be in good form, the heart of the village now that the Rose & Crown is closed, and Thrapston now has two pubs in the league, the Fox Inn and Mason Arms, the latter of the two is where I visited recently for a very fine pint of Proper Job IPA.

The Mason Arms has stood at the corner of the old Oundle Road in town since at least the early 19th century, and it's believed the pub may have been known as the Dukes Head prior to this. A former Charles Wells Brewery house, the pub is now in private hands, with Pool, Darts, Live Music at the weekends, and the aforementioned good beer keeping the locals happy.

The Northamptonshire Skittles Table occupies a slightly separate area from the main bar in what was probably a smaller snug room at one time, given that there was originally a separate entrance at the corner of the pub in addition to the current entrance on Huntingdon Road. The throw for the table is on the diagonal given the limited space, a not uncommon occurrence in skittles pubs. So a noisy affair on match days I'm sure, but it's always good to see the Skittles Table in the bar and not tucked away in a function room where few visitors might know it's there for a game.

The Piper, Kettering, Northamptonshire

'What's On' at the Woolcomber, Ise Lodge

Kettering town and its surrounding villages has long been one of the key areas for the traditional game of Northamptonshire Table Skittles. Sadly the commercial centre of town is now almost entirely free of the game, the now closed Three Cocks being the last pub within sight of the shops to have a skittles table as far as I can tell. Only the Alexandra Arms hosts the game now, and even the Alex' is set back a few streets from the commercial centre, deriving most of its trade from the surrounding terraced housing and travelling beer enthusiasts rather than the footfall of town centre shoppers.

To the north of the centre, amongst the faded industry of boot and shoe making, and the tightly packed Victorian terraced housing associated with it, is a concentration of social clubs and just a single pub where the game is still played, this includes the excellent Midland Band Club which has recently featured on this blog.

So when it comes to Northamptonshire towns, the best chance of finding a Skittles Table in regular use these days is in a post-war estate pub. It’s a kind of Doughnut Effect, with town centre pubs and bars chasing the latest trends in food, drink and entertainment, traditional, noisy, space-hogging games like Skittles, Darts, and even Pool are pushed ever further out to the pubs and clubs of the suburbs.

Now I believed I’d covered Kettering’s estate pubs pretty comprehensively on this blog. I certainly thought I’d been to all of the outlying venues with a Skittles Table, classic post-war or later flat-roof locals for the most part, last bastions of a pub-going culture that's rapidly disappearing almost everywhere. The only pub I knew for sure I'd missed was the Leather Craftsman, a slightly run-down flat-roof local on the Ise Lodge estate that I'd driven past but decided I could leave for another day. I blinked and missed it though, the pub closed for good not long after, the building soon demolished to make room for yet more housing. Yet another skittles pub gone forever.

More recently The Harlequin on the Grange Estate has closed, plans now approved by the local council to convert to a convenience store. I did manage to visit The Harlequin once, though I have to say there wasn't a huge amount to see other than the Skittles Table (below). Change is of course one of the few absolute certainties of the pub trade, so a revisit to Kettering's estate pubs felt long overdue, before I blinked and missed another one.

The Ise Lodge estate lies to the east of the town centre, well served by the Woolcomber, which I'm pleased to say remains open and reassuringly unchanged since my last visit some four years ago. Which is to say a tidy and well-run pub with Darts, Pool, and Skittles Table. Much as I like the 'Wooly' it was another pub nearby that I was particularly interested in.

The Piper's entry in a 1990 CAMRA Pub Guide
Note that there's no Skittles Table mentioned

The Piper is one of those pubs that I've shamefully neglected over the years. A popular pub with beer drinkers, located on the town side of Ise Lodge, and conveniently close to Wickstead Park though sadly not quite convenient enough to attract me more than once or twice over the years. It's a great traditional 50's two-room boozer, until recently run by the same licensees for a marathon 33 years, and a regular Good Beer Guide entry to boot, so why the neglect? Well unusually for a pub of its kind and in this location, it never had a Skittles Table... until now that is.

A pub like The Piper has always seemed to me to be a perfect fit for the local game, the right-hand bar, which is effectively a games room, has plenty of room alongside the Darts and Pool for a Skittles Table. Maybe the pub did have a table when it first opened way back in the 1950's. It seems likely to me, but in common with so many pubs built around this time, there's precious little to be found online about its early days.

It's taken quite a sad turn of events for the game to finally arrive at the pub, a nasty health scare encouraging longstanding licensees Garth & Sue Coward to finally hand in the reigns of the business and seek a quieter life outside the pub trade. New licensees have been running the pub for around a year now, and things seemed much the same to me when I visited. A group of thirsty workers, the lifeblood of pubs like this, were enjoying early-doors pints and a rolling round of games on the Pool Table. A brace of well-known beers graced the bar, and of course the new (old) Skittles Table stood ready, tucked into a corner of the bar adjacent to the Darts Oche.

The table has arrived at the pub complete with teams from the Mikado Pheasant, another estate pub that's already featured on this blog but only recently reopened after a spell in the doldrums. 'A' and 'B' teams play on a Monday night in the Kettering & District Skittles League, a seemingly healthy league of 27 teams competing across three divisions in and around the town.

So not all change in the pub trade is for the worse, and certainly the installation of a Skittles Table at The Piper, and the weekday trade it's likely to bring can only be a good thing.

Conservative Club, Barrow Upon Soar, Leicestershire

Barrow Upon Soar in Leicestershire's Soar Valley is probably best known for the impressive Plesiosaur fossil that was discovered by workmen digging a Lime Pit in 1851, the original, now catchily renamed Rhomaleosaurus Megacephalus, resides in Leicester's New Walk Museum. Villagers are clearly proud of their fossil, examples of which are reproduced all over the village (above) as part of a Fossil Trail that I didn't have time to explore. I suspect this may be the only thing Barrow is truly famous for, although it's position on the navigable River Soar is how many outsiders will have come across the village, and the extensive Lime Works are a notable landmark when viewed from the Midland Mainline between Leicester and Loughborough.

There is of course much more to Barrow than ancient aquatic fossils. The pubs of the village for example, of which there are a fair few. In fact Barrow Upon Soar strikes me as being a relatively small village that's slightly over-pubbed! Not that I believe anywhere can truly be over-pubbed if the locals are keen to use them, so let’s rephrase that as 'blessed' with good number of pubs and clubs, most of which I found to be very good indeed on a recent visit to the village.

So Barrow is a village that makes for a great afternoon pub crawl destination, even more so if you're up for the short walk across the River Soar floodplain (do check the tides first!) to explore the clutch of pubs in nearby Quorndon (renamed Quorn in 1889). Quorn village also opens up the possibility of a ride on the Great Central Railway, a preserved heritage rail line that runs from Loughborough, through beautiful Charnwood countryside to Birstall on the outskirts of Leicester.

We might expect that a Leicestershire village as comprehensively pubbed as Barrow would be a happy hunting ground for traditional pub games, indeed the Soar Valley area remains one of the strongholds of Leicestershire's unique version of Alley Skittles. In fact Barrow itself has only two alleys as far as I can tell, of which only one is in regular use for competition, the Working Men's Club in nearby Sileby being the only other venue for league play within walking distance. The fact is that many of the pubs and clubs in the area have lost their skittle alleys, the Blue Bell in Rothley converting theirs to a restaurant as recently as 2014 for example.

As it happens it would have been around 10 years ago that I last explored the village, penning a piece on skittles at the Soar Bridge Inn which is now probably Barrow's last remaining pub with an alley for the local game of Long Alley Skittles. Whether it gets much use for the game these days is hard to say, the pub doesn't seem to field a team in the local league anymore so perhaps it's more of a social venue now.

So for league play we must go to the nearby Barrow Conservative Club, which should be no great hardship whatever your political persuasion given that in common with almost every club I've been to in recent years it's impeccably run, and with a decent local pint and quality snacks too, though more particularly the kind of filled Cobs the East Midlands is rightly famous for.

It's at places like the Conservative Club that traditional pub games not only survive, but in many cases truly thrive. Cribbage, Darts, Dominoes, Skittles, and Snooker are all played at the club, Quiz Nights, Bands and Bingo keeping the non-gamers entertained.

Tucked away off North Street, some might say the club is appropriately located given that the building, whilst certainly tidy enough, is in truth not much to look at from the outside. I was keen to get a photo but I just couldn't find an angle that made it look anything more than it is, a modern red brick affair with a separate, and if anything slightly more attractive Skittle Alley/Function Room. So, somewhat plain and functional on the outside, but warm and welcoming within.

The Conservative Club Skittle Alley occupies space in a sizeable function room, the ‘Frame’ for the skittle pins a pockmarked steel plate set into the wooden flooring (right). This setup is increasingly popular for a game that would originally have been played outdoors (as it still is at some venues for the game in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire), or at best in a draughty outhouse of the pub. Comfort is more of a concern now, particularly for leagues that play through the Winter months, as here. Given the robust nature of a game where barrel shaped 'Cheeses' are hurled through the air rather than rolled along the surface, it surprises me that these indoor alleys don't suffer more damage, testament to the skills and accuracy of the players I'm sure.

Whenever I investigate Long Alley Skittles in Leicestershire it's almost always the Syston & District Skittles League that comes up. There's not much to be found about the history of the league online, sadly there rarely is for pub games leagues, but it's certainly been around for at least the best part of a century. Indeed I have a medal for the 1944/45 season of what was then called the Syston Skittles League (left). The much reduced 'District' league of today extends as far as Melton Mowbray in one direction, Barrow and Sileby in the other, with competition down to just one division of ten teams. This encompasses several Cup Competitions and numerous trophies for outstanding performance, such as Highest Individual Score. Reduced it may be, but the league is also a proud supporter of the local LOROS Hospice through generous donations from its membership.

Dukes Arms, Woodford, Northamptonshire

The renaming of pubs is a controversial subject, more often than not incurring the wrath of traditionalists and locals alike. I have to say that I'm not a fan of name changes, or unnecessary refurbishments for that matter. A lick of paint and a good polish is as far as anyone needs to go in my view, and as for the great British swinging pub sign, well these should be treated as heritage assets and either left well alone or sympathetically restored.

Needless to say I'm in the minority in this regard, and yes, I'm well aware that most pubs we might regard as 'unspoilt' have in fact been radically restructured at some point in their lives, and of course pub names have been changing for centuries to reflect local and nationally historical events. I just can't help thinking they did it a bit better back then.

There are of course many exceptions. Take the subject of this post for example, a pub hitherto known as The Dukes Arms, and prior to that The Falcon Inn, The Lord St John's Arms, and The Lords Arms before the appendages were amputated. Unnecessary change we might imagine, yet hardly unique. My own local the Royal George in Cottingham is known by all and sundry as The George, the now closed Spread Eagle in the village was always truncated to The Spread, and even the long closed Red Lion in Middleton was generally referred to as The Red by locals. What chance thirsty Woodford folk arranged to meet-up for pints at the Dukes Arms? Not likely I'd imagine, particularly given that abbreviating to "The Dukes" saves a few seconds of precious extra drinking time when opening hours were necessarily limited. In truth it's surprising that any 'Arms', 'Heads', or indeed 'Horses' have survived at all in pub names given that they're so rarely used by the locals.

The only truly acceptable change in my view is that which serves to revive a moribund boozer, or genuinely enhance local usage. Because a village local that isn't shaped by the quirks and interests of the locals to some degree, or indeed reflect the character and eccentricities of the licensees, can hardly be regarded as a local at all. Clearly The Dukes in Woodford is every inch the village local, and a remarkably busy one at that, or it certainly was on the Thursday afternoon I visited.

In common with so many rural and village pubs, the Dukes has had the custom of three pubs squeezed into one. The Prince of Wales and White Horse have both gone for good in recent years leaving the Dukes as the only pub in what is a fairly substantial Northamptonshire village. The Working Mens Club is also still going strong though, reinvented on a shiny new site as the village's Community & Sports Club. New it may be but the traditions of old have been maintained with two Skittles Tables in the well-appointed games room.

Long regarded as being the oldest pub in the village, the Dukes was probably a Phipps Brewery house at one time given that the pub still sports a Watney Mann Brewery 'George & Dragon' swinging sign. These are still quite common in the county, part of the wholesale rebranding of the Phipps NBC pub estate when the brewery was acquired by Watney Mann in 1960.

The pub is well and truly free of tie now, and with a glowing reputation for its beer range which is what drew me back to Woodford recently. In fact this post on the The Dukes has been gathering dust on my hard drive for a few years now, the games room photos below taken over ten years ago. A midweek pint on the way home from nearby Thrapston offered the opportunity to take a few more photos and wrap up a pub I knew would be well worth a revisit. 

The Dukes is one of many attractive ironstone pubs in this part of the county, as traditional a Northamptonshire village local as you could hope to find. The interior could perhaps be best described as 'eccentric' though. Quirkiness abounds throughout the pub, from the fabulous glitzy stage in what was originally the games area, to the opulent smoking shelter which comes with its very own wood burner, and a sprawling garden complete with a rare Monkey Tree! It would be wrong to judge the Duke's only on its eccentricities though, this is still a traditional village local firmly rooted in the community that it serves so well.

So the Games Room was moved upstairs several years ago, all the better to preserve the peaceful ambiance of the main bar area, reserved for village gossip and the quiet contemplation of The Dukes' numerous ales. Darts, Pool, and Northamptonshire Table Skittles rub along noisily upstairs, though how much of the play is competitive in leagues these days I couldn't say.

As you can see above, the fixture list for league play in the Islip & District Skittles League was busy enough in the 2012/13 season, with two divisions and twenty teams slogging it out through the Winter months. But as we all know, the intervening ten years have been ones of huge upheaval in the licensed trade, and even a cursory glance of the teams reveals at least two closed pubs.

One is the aforementioned Prince of Wales in the village, the other the Kings Head in Wadenhoe, a long-term closed pub that's currently on the market so will hopefully reopen at some point. Even The Dukes own 'B' team seem to have been scratched from the list as the season progressed, not unusual for a league, but perhaps a sign of things to come for a traditional pub game that we know has been in decline for some years now.

I do know that the Islip & District League is still going strong though having seen play quite recently at one of my closest Corby pubs The Domino, a welcome return of Skittles to the Town that I hope to cover on here soon. The Islip & District is now probably the most important league for Skittles in North Northamptonshire, covering an area centred not so much on tiny Islip itself, but one of the strongholds of the game in nearby Kettering. Long may it and great pubs like The Dukes continue in one form or another.