King William IV, Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire

The King William IV is an attractive ironstone pub of a type found throughout Northamptonshire. It's a village pub through and through, opposite the village green in fact, yet located on the edge of Northampton town's urban sprawl. The village of Kingsthorpe is blessed with at least one other welcoming locals pub in the Queen Adelaide, a pub which has already featured on this blog owing to the presence of a traditional Northamptonshire Skittles Table. The King Billy is also home to the local game, and you're welcome to have a 'chuck' whenever the table is free from the important business of league play.

League play is obviously an important part of what makes the King Billy tick, as evidenced by the windowsill full of assorted trophies for Darts, Pool, and Skittles. These include a winners salver for the 2003/4 season in the Coors Brewery sponsored Ladies League (right), and a little more surprisingly, this odd looking horn (?) trophy (below) from the Daventry & District Skittles League. The Daventry League is still very much an active one, but did play really extend this far to the north of the county at one time, or was the trophy brought to the pub by a former player from the Daventry area?