Northway Arms, Northway, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire

Classic 'modern' estate pubs like the Northway Arms don't as a rule feature heavily on beer blogs, and with one or two notable exceptions, rarely make much of an impression on pub blogs either. Indeed why would they! These pubs are neither fish nor fowl in the world of blogging, more often than not tied to a very limited beer range, and not usually regarded as being historically or architecturally important. It's one of the reasons I'm keen to feature them on this blog, because they really are a neglected subject both online and in print such that it can be quite difficult to research their origins or near past. Another reason being that we've lost so many of these boozers in recent years, often leaving little or no trace that they ever existed.

In many ways, those post-war and early 20th century estate pubs that do survive (as well as trades and social clubs) represent a last link to how all community locals would have been at one time, and how many still were in the mid-80's when I first started drinking in them. Pubs that served a multitude of social functions for a largely local clientele, and where the range of beers, whilst it may have had some bearing on which pubs you and your mates preferred, played second fiddle to who you were meeting up with that night, or what gaming and entertainment might be on. As the only pub on quite a large estate that's neither bustling town nor rural village destination, the Northway Arms simply has to fulfil this varied and inclusive social function if it's to thrive.

Of course estate pubs have always had a limited appeal to the beer enthusiast. Particularly given that many were established during the infamous rush to keg of the 1960's, and were probably regarded as unsuitable outlets for the nascent real ale revival that followed in its wake. The Northway certainly had a cask beer from the Allied stable of breweries in the mid 90's, and may well have done when the pub first opened its doors in the 60's or 70's, but sadly the handpumps are now long gone.

It's also true that many estate pubs are regarded (often by those who don't actually use them!) as being slightly less than attractive as social venues. There's some truth in this of course. Until relatively recently, estate pubs have been largely ignored by their pubco owners when it comes to the annual refurbishment budget, the spending more often targeted at high-earning food outlets, city-centre bars, and rural tourist destinations. As a result many of these buildings have been in steady decline almost since the day they were built. Never particularly attractive to non-locals anyway, but getting ever more tired and unloved over the years until the axe finally falls on what were once very popular pubs that even the locals have fallen out of love with. Neighbourhood supermarkets in residential areas mark the passing of many of these sadly neglected boozers.

Over the last couple of years though I've noticed welcome signs of change, and visited several recently refurbished estate pubs that are finally being given a second chance by their owners in the hope of re-establishing them at the heart of the communities they serve. The Northway falls very-much into this category. The pub has received a comprehensive makeover in recent years that fully respects the buildings historic origins as a Manor House in the original Northway hamlet. It's immaculate inside and out, retains a multi-room layout, and is a credit to the current licensees who've been very proactive with regard to functions, events, and charitable fundraising within the local community throughout the last 7 years of their tenancy.

Whilst the Northway is undoubtedly a very fine pub in my view, it's not, if I'm absolutely honest, a pub I'd be going out of my way to drink in under normal circumstances. I think it's safe to say that this is very much a local pub, primarily serving the needs of locals on the Northway estate. Not so much a destination pub for a tourist on his way back from a long day out in Worcester, though the fact that the pub also functions as a handy waiting room for the Ashchurch rail station goes some way to explaining why I found myself in the bar, Guinness in hand, late on a Saturday night. Now I'd certainly had a few beers that day, but then so it seems had the locals. A lively but friendly bunch as you'd expect on a Saturday night. The banter was a little bit coarse it's true, you either like that or you don't. I'm fine with it and I think they were fine with me as a result.

Of course the main reason I was happy to pop in for a pint was that the Northway is an important venue in the local Tewkesbury & District Skittles League, and I have to thank the barman who was on that night for happily opening up the skittle alley for me when I'm sure he had far better things to do.

Gloucestershire remains a stronghold for the 'West Country' skittles tradition, with leagues centred on most of the bigger towns, albeit that the Tewkesbury League is certainly not what it was. Whilst the league seems to be well supported, currently stretching to four divisions of over fifty teams, venues continue to be lost. This years devastating floods in the Severn region seem to have finally done for the White Bear in Tewkesbury itself, the licensees finally throwing in the towel after several years of repeated and highly damaging flooding (though I have heard rumours of a possible reprise since I visited). The pub was up for sale when I popped down for a look, it's future very far from certain, and of course this includes its very fine skittle alley, the last remaining alley at a pub in Tewkesbury itself.

Which makes surviving pubs like the Northway all the more precious. Because classic estate pubs are not only a last link to what some of us regard as a golden age of social pub-going, but often they're the last custodians of a social gaming tradition every bit as important as beer and brewing, the subject of which seems to dominate the pub scene now to a wholly disproportionate degree in my view.

As I write this, the Northway Arms is of course closed along with all other pubs during the current national lockdown. The pub is still serving the community however, acting as a collection point for food and other important supplies, helping provide a lifeline for self-isolating individuals and other vulnerable people within the Northway area.

A practice set of skittles is always available for a few 'hands' at the pub, with each teams matchday pins kept secure in boxes as shown (above). The partition to the right of the pins (below) is where the 'sticker' takes refuge after re-seating the pins.

London Inn, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

It's been a few years since I visited Cheltenham and surrounds for a weekend of pleasure and pints. Needless to say the pub scene has moved on a bit since then, but only a 'bit' so far as I can tell. Yes, there's a smart new craft beer bar and bottle shop on the funky Bath Road, and a similarly shiny new Brewery Tap near the rail station, but the town has already seen a craft beer bar fail, and the burgeoning micropub phenomena seems to have passed Cheltenham by up to now. Not necessarily a bad thing in my view given that micropubs are often the natural replacement for struggling traditional boozers rather than a welcome supplement to them. All this might suggest that Cheltenhams pubs are struggling that little bit less than most, and this may well be true. We've all been to pubs that by luck or design seem to have sidestepped the general decline in pub-going. Cheltenhams pubs seem to me to be as popular as ever with a loyal local crowd.

What has continued to change though is the steady, seemingly inexorable loss of the towns more traditional pubs, and often with it their traditional skittle alleys. Sometimes the result of a pub closing, more often though it's down to the creeping gentrification of the pub market that's happening almost everywhere, and the ever-present trend of chasing the (already saturated it seems to me!) food trade.

This is a longstanding trend of course, and one that I've noted many times before on this blog. The Brown Jug on Bath Road is a good case in point. When I visited some five years ago it had only just been refurbished, but the excellent skittle alley remained a firm fixture and the pub was very busy throughout the week with league and cup matches. Recently though, I discovered that the pub has been refurbished once again, this time the skittle alley converted to yet more dining space. A truly inexplicable loss of what was clearly a very well-used asset, and just the latest in a long line of similar losses.

Where once it was common for pubs throughout the town to have a skittle alley (sometimes more than one), with home 'A' and 'B' teams in both Mens and Ladies leagues, there are now just a fraction of the alleys available (albeit for a reduced number of teams). This has resulted in ever-more skittles teams being squeezed into a dwindling number of pubs and clubs. Hence there's often a log-jam of matches throughout the week, and a bit of a nightmare for those compiling the fixture lists. Now that the alley at the Brown Jug has gone, another half-dozen or so teams are either looking for a new home or will sadly, almost inevitably, call it a day. This of course, is how pub games eventually die...

So pubs continue to close or move upmarket, and alleys continue to disappear, but there's still plenty of interest in the game from locals of all ages, and plenty of teams still keen to play during the week. The Cheltenham Skittles League alone comprises over a dozen divisions for Mens and Ladies competition, added to which are several teams playing in Summer and Winter competition in the Cheltenham Civil Service Skittles League. But the fact remains, the number of alleys available, and the lack of commitment to the game shown by some local pub owners really doesn't reflect the demand that's still there from locals, which means the Cheltenham skittles tradition is becoming a less common, more specialist aspect of the pub scene. It's also being pushed ever further from the upmarket centre of town.

This shift of skittles to the suburbs and villages is sad and perhaps inevitable, but it's also clearly to the benefit of pubs like the London Inn which now hosts several teams, including of course some of those which have been exiled from their own 'home' alleys. Even so, chatting with the licensee of the London Inn confirmed that pubs in the Charlton Kings area have experienced a similar level of closure and gentrification to that seen in Cheltenham and elsewhere. Of the nine pubs listed in my 1990's copy of CAMRA's Real Ale In Gloucestershire, only a couple have actually closed, but of the four which are listed as skittles pubs, only one now remains. The Little Owl closed some years ago, and both the Merry Fellow and Royal appear to have removed their alleys in favour of the all-important food trade.

Of course dining is an increasingly important aspect of the London Inn's success, but thankfully it represents just one part of the pubs wide appeal. The current licensees have been at the pub for just a few short years, but have already made a terrific job refurbishing and revitalising what was a typically tired and neglected village local. The pub is now a proper all-rounder with a tidy beer garden to the rear, all the televised sport in the bar, and a quality food offering that's attracting visitors to the pub. It's also a proper Inn, with several recently refurbished letting rooms available.

I popped in early-doors Sunday for a pint whilst the staff were gearing up for the traditional Sunday Lunch trade. A scattering of locals were in for that other Sunday afternoon tradition, the televised football, and as Sunday traditions go, few are more welcome than the huge bowls of roast potatoes that appeared on the bar as I was mooching around with my camera. The skittle alley, which extends into the garden, is in use most weekday evenings for league matches, and in common with most of the alleys in this neck of the woods, it's smart and impeccably maintained. It certainly needs to be as this space also doubles as the pubs equally important function room.

The Old Crown, Wigston, Leicestershire

I've had a run of bad luck when out and about with the camera recently, arriving at several pubs with high hopes of great gaming interest, only to come away with nothing but the lingering taste of a slightly rushed pint. Partly it's down to it being that fallow time of year, the gap between Winter and Summer league activity when the pub games have been tidied away. In other cases it's simply that the numerous online resources I rely on for accurate information have not been adequately updated, or at least the all-important gaming aspect has been overlooked yet again.

I've also come unstuck on a couple of occasions with that perennial bane of the pub-goers life, the opening hours lottery. Not such a big deal in a town with plenty of alternatives, but a village pub that isn't open when advertised can be a bit of a disaster, particularly if you're using public transport to get there. Less troublesome, though no-less frustrating from my own perspective, is when a pub turns out to be a bit dull, and just not interesting enough to inspire a blog post. A restaurant in all but name with a skittles table shoved away in a corner out of sight, hardly makes a good subject on a blog dedicated to tradition and the pub as 'local'.

The day was heading that way for all these reasons and more on a recent exploration of the 'skittles zone' south of Leicester, such that I was on the verge of giving it up as a bad job and retiring to the local micropub (little gaming interest, but a guarantee of good beer at least). I decided to try one more pub on the way though, in the hope of third time lucky!...

The Old Crown Inn was already a failed visit from several years ago. On that occasion I'd arrived when the pub was open and buzzing with local life, definitely good material for this blog, but sadly the Skittle Alley I was keen to record was "...a bit of a mess at the moment, the season's over you see...". A great shame as the pub itself is one of the most traditional and relatively unspoilt in Wigston, a proper bar and lounge affair with beamed ceilings and décor just the right side of lived-in/scruffy for my taste. I liked the place. A proper village boozer of the kind I generally prefer to spend my drinking time in, so I aimed to return when the skittle alley was up and running, but obviously never quite got round to it.

So after an afternoon of disappointments, three cheers for the Crown. Not only open, warm and inviting, and with a decent Saturday afternoon crowd in the lounge, but a good pint too and newish licensees who were happy to show me the skittle alley I'd missed on my last short visit. A major change is the interior, the slightly shabby but pleasant one I'd admired first time around clearly hadn't passed muster with the pubs owners. The lounge in particular has been spruced-up, refurbished for the more discerning customer I guess, though certainly not overdone or spoilt as so many have been in recent years. So still a traditional two-roomer, and still very much a pub for the locals who regard the Crown as an escape from the more lively pubs in the village.

The local history society have suggested that the Old Crown is one of the oldest buildings in Wigston, built perhaps a hundred years before it gets its first mention in an 1846 edition of Whites Directory. There are numerous outbuildings to the rear, all contemporary with the main building, but the Skittle Alley is probably later. Though a relatively 'modern' addition, the skittle alley surface shows enough ware and tear from decades of enthusiastic use to give the impression it could be at least as historic as the pub itself.

Long Alley Skittles probably developed as an outdoor game in the East Midlands, indeed it remains so at many pubs in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, albeit that more and more alleys are being covered over or enclosed to some degree. All the pub and club skittle alleys that I'm aware of in Leicestershire are located in adapted or purpose built buildings, but the twin alleys on the village green at Thrussington in the north of the county couldn't be more outdoors, and perhaps gives us an insight into what may have been more common in the early days of the game.

Long Alley is of course a highly skilful game in the hands of experienced players. Nevertheless it represents the most basic form of all the surviving skittles games. For most of its length the 'alley' merely serves to define the distance of the throw, since the 'Cheeses' used in Long Alley are not rolled down the surface, rather they're tossed through the air. So the game can be played just about anywhere so long as there's a hard-standing area for the tall wooden pins, and a clear throw of an appropriate distance.

Long Alley has changed very little over the years, and retains much of the feel of an ad-hoc game played with relatively inexpensive equipment, and in whatever yard or outbuilding was available at or near where beer was drunk. The mottled flooring around the 'chock hole' (above) for example, is a common feature of Leicestershire skittle alleys, most of which are located in separate buildings to the main pub. When delivering a cheese down the alley, the trailing foot must remain in the chock hole until the cheese is released, but this does not preclude launching yourself down the alley immediately afterwards if that helps deliver more speed or accuracy to the throw. Of course frequent trips to the bar on wet evenings could make a smoother surface dangerously slippery, hence this mottled non-slip flooring around the chock hole.

Skittles in Wigston and the wider area of south Leicestershire is played in the Tom Bishop League. The recently concluded Winter League has two divisions, the Premier Division sponsored by local brewers Everards, maintaining a tradition which stretches back many years and was the standard for pub games leagues when most pubs were tied to a local brewery. Brewery owners have always valued the custom that pub games leagues bring, particularly on otherwise quiet weekday evenings. The Barrie Clarke Division is named in memory of a long-standing stalwart of the league.

The Fox, Carlton, Bedfordshire

Every now and then I like to choose a good book, dust off the old camera, and use what little remains of our rural public transport to search out new pubs in far-flung places. Anyone that does similar will know it can take a fair bit of forward planning to get to where you want to be at more or less the time you'd like to be there on these jaunts, and no matter how much research you've done beforehand, there's always going to be an element of hit-or-miss about the day. The main danger being that your destination pub won't be open at the advertised time, or even worse, not open at all! Rural villages are already littered with long-closed locals, and sadly they're still closing at a truly alarming rate.

Perhaps just as bad from my perspective is when the pub in question 'is' open, but just doesn't match the rose-tinted vision of pubby-perfection I've held in my mind on that long bus journey. I'm generally travelling with knowledge of a pubs gaming interest of course, but I'm also looking for good locals pubs, and ideally a nice pint too. Town centre chain bars and the 'pub-as-restaurant' model don't particularly interest me, and neither do pubs that are attractive and traditional on the outside, but bland, stripped-out, and entirely lacking in charm and character within. In common with the pub games that this blog is mainly concerned with, what I'm hoping to find is a pub that's not entirely lost its connection with the traditions and history of the community it serves.

So, one train and two meandering bus rides into the heart of Bedforshire later, I found myself more than a little disappointed with my initial pub choice. Sometimes it's hard to put your finger on why a pub just doesn't 'do-it' for you, but this otherwise perfectly serviceable, and outwardly attractive village local (which shall remain nameless for obvious reasons) 'really' didn't do-it for me. A bit bland and gentrified within, polite but thoroughly unengaging locals and landlord, just a little bit dull if I'm honest. Perhaps it was me, but despite the presence of a very fine old skittles table in the corner that I know gets regular use in a local league, I was struggling to see a good photo opportunity, and just couldn't think how I was going to make the place seem anything like interesting, because it just wasn't to my eyes! Underwhelming then, though clearly not to the handful of locals in at the time, and of course I'm genuinely pleased that the community hasn't lost its single remaining boozer in the way that so many villages already have. Perhaps it was me...

Cutting my planned two hour lunchtime pint(s) short, I did a quick recce on the internet (thank heavens for rural 3G) and caught my third bus of the day to the two-pub village of Carlton. This was more like it! A swift half in the snug of the thoroughly modernised, but actually very pleasant Royal Oak, before strolling the length of the village for my second stab at a destination pub worth travelling for, and hopefully worth writing about.

I knew very little about The Fox before visiting that day, other than it has a good reputation for beer (entirely justified I'd say), is open all day every day (rare and very welcome, particularly for a village pub), and that it plays host to the local game of Table Skittles, or 'Hood Skittles' as it's often known round these parts. I certainly wasn't aware of how chocolate-box pretty the pub is, a legacy of its former life as a farmhouse. In fact it's a bit of a thatched beauty, nestled between the village high street and the road to nearby Turvey, and with a cottage garden at the front that looks exactly the place to be on a warm summer afternoon. You really couldn't ask for a more attractive and welcoming sight after spending the best part of two hours travelling.

After many years as a Charles Wells Brewery house, The Fox is now free of tie and in the safe hands of licensee Alison Brown who bought the pub in 2014. There's a good overview of the pubs history on the Bedfordshire Community Archive webpages which suggests it was a rather small, dark and pokey place originally, trading none-too successfully it seems as a simple village alehouse. The pub today has clearly lost much of its original multi-room layout, but nevertheless it now comfortably straddles the divide between modern open-plan convenience with a strong food offering, and a pub that retains plenty of genuine character and essential 'pubbiness'. I took a strong liking to The Fox immediately I walked through the door, and was made very welcome by Alison who was busy keeping the Saturday afternoon drinkers served at the bar.

One thing I've noticed from visiting some of the more traditional pubs in the county, is that Bedfordshire pubs are generally rugby pubs, perhaps even more so than neighbouring Leicestershire and Northants. Sadly I couldn't stick around for the whole game, but it was good to see a small but enthusiastic crowd in for the weekend Six Nations matches, a pub tradition I've been enjoying since its earlier Five Nations days, but which seems to me to be on the wane as a traditional afternoon session these days.

The northern half of Bedfordshire is also very much Skittles country, the version known more widely as Northamptonshire Table Skittles being the game of choice. The skittles table is sensibly located in a separate games room to the rear of the pub (it's a noisy business), and shares throwing space with the Dartboard. Tuesdays are match days in a league that would also be entirely new to me that day. That's because the Ouse Valley Skittles League, in common with many similar pub games leagues around the country, doesn't seem to advertise its existence very widely.

12 teams make up the Winter competition, which runs from October through to March with a finals night in April. I'm not entirely sure if there's an equivalent Summer league. There are currently 10 venues for the game in the Ouse Valley league, a mix of pubs and social clubs dotted around an area to the north of Bedford, stretching almost as far as Wellingborough in the games heartland county of Northamptonshire.

The skittles table was fully equipped with a set of Boxwood pins and cheeses ready for practice and casual games, a good enough reason to visit the pub even without the attraction of a bite to eat, or a few beers in the garden of a really lovely village pub.

The Cordwainer, Kettering, Northamptonshire

With this post I bring my recent whistle-stop tour of Ketterings generally underrated, and for my part, infrequently visited estate pubs to a conclusion. Finishing with a recently refurbished community local that, in common with both the Stirrup Cup and Woolcomber, would be yet another entirely new pub to me.

There's a good reason why I rarely visit these estate pubs, and it's not entirely down to the (often but not always!) limited beer choice. Despite Kettering being just a short bus or train ride away for me, and a town I like to visit at least once a month, most of them are just that little bit off the beaten track, and frankly a little too far to walk to from what is after all a very well-pubbed town centre.

Not so The Cordwainer, a pub I've been aiming to visit for some time now but always assumed was an inconvenient bus ride away at best. In fact the pub is located on the very edge of a late-Victorian residential area just to the North of the town centre, a sprawl of mostly terraced housing built to accommodate workers in Ketterings burgeoning shoe trade. 'Cordwainer' is of course an archaic name for a shoemaker.

Although the Cordwainer stands opposite a row of late 19th century housing, it's clear from the pubs appearance that it wasn't built as a classic Victorian mid-terrace alehouse. In fact very few such pubs survive in Kettering, the Melton Arms being the latest example to close for good, and most of the social drinking on this side of town takes place in the numerous trade and social clubs such as the nearby Miniature Rifle Club. So The Cordwainer is a newer build, established to serve the much later 20th century housing that surrounds the adjacent North Park recreation space, perhaps even as late as the 1980's from its appearance, a much less functional design than some of its 50's and 60's 'flat roof' peers.

As with the Woolcomber on the Ise Lodge estate, my early 90's edition of the local CAMRA pub guide indicates that Home Bitter from the brewery in Daybrook was the only real ale available at the time. Indeed a page on the Brewery History Society website lists both of these pubs as being Home Ales houses originally, which would have made them considerable outliers to the brewerys core pub trade in and around Nottingham. Sadly it's been quite a while since any ale appeared on the Cordwainer's single handpump.

The pub was extensively refurbished quite recently, but thankfully retains its original two-room layout. The current licensees appear to have taken a leaf out of the Stirrup Cup's book, converting the left-hand lounge bar (right & below) into JKs Cafe during daytime trading hours. This bar then reverts to more traditional pub use in the evenings, and it's here that the pubs Dartboard and vintage Northamptonshire Skittles Table reside.

One thing that's become very clear to me from visiting these estate pubs, is that the traditional concept of social drinking alongside sport and games, whilst still popular in some pubs at certain times of the day, is simply not enough to sustain what are often marginal businesses anymore. Particularly so on weekday afternoons when all but the most commercial high street chain bars tend to be very quiet. The future viability of estate pubs like the Cordwainer clearly relies on developing a good food trade, but also imaginative use of what are often substantial buildings on generous plots. Functions and social events have always been a strong point for these suburban community locals (and the ever-popular weekly Meat Raffle of course!), but this diversification into an afternoon café function seems to work well, it's what locals want from their pub at this time of the day. So I was delighted to see the licensees at the Cordwainer have taken this very positive initiative.

Of course the heart of a pub like the Cordwainer will always be pints at the bar, a chat with fellow locals, and the all-important televised sport and traditional pub games that this blog is all about, all of which were on show when I visited on a typically slow weekday early afternoon.

Pool is the most important game played at the Cordwainer, the pub fielding three teams in the Kettering Town Pool League, currently clustered mid-table in Division 1 which must make for an occasional fixture clash. The main Pool Table is immaculately maintained by locals in the front bar, with a second table covered and available when required in the lounge bar.

Pool, Darts, and Table Skittles are common features of all the pubs I've visited around Kettering recently, which is as it should be. Estate pubs like these are often the last stronghold of the more traditional pub games like skittles, though happily this is not the case in Kettering, with several notable venues for the local game dotted around the town centre. It's quite likely that a skittles table would have been installed at these 'modern' estate pubs from day one, the game being hugely popular throughout Northamptonshire at the time. Indeed many clubs in the area are known to have had several tables until relatively recently, such was the demand for a game, with competitive play in several overlapping leagues throughout the week. Interest in the game has of course contracted considerably in recent years, and Skittles is now played at the Cordwainer in a combined Kettering, Burton Latimer & District League, the home team currently leading the field in the second tier of competition.

The table itself appears to be something of a hybrid. Constructed in 1973 by W.T Black & Son of Northampton, as evidenced by the stencilling underneath which can be found on almost all Blacks tables. At some point the table has been refurbished and/or repaired by G.J Pepper though. The Pepper brothers of nearby Wellingborough were perhaps the most highly regarded of all the Northants skittles table manufacturers, and presumably in competition with the Northampton company, but would have worked on many of these tables once the 'Black' company ceased trading. The square-form netting at the back of the table is certainly more typical of a Peppers table.