Playing Northamptonshire Table Skittles at the Engineers Arms in Henlow.
We visited the Engineers Arms this afternoon having recently seen an advert for the pub in a CAMRA magazine that we picked up at the London Hatter pub in Luton. The advert caught my eye as it mentioned that they had Northamptonshire Skittles at the pub! As fans of pub games we made a note to visit next time we were in the area.
Emily and I really enjoyed our visit to the pub. It’s a nice spot and we had a drink in the cool and shady beer garden before facing-off in our first-ever game of Skittles!
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| The Northamptonshire Skittles Table at the Engineers Arms in Henlow |
Having never played the game before we sought advice on the rules from Northamptonshire’s premier Minigolfer Marc ‘The Roller’ Bazeley, a man who is known to play the game of Skittles in his local sports and social club.
Abridged Rules Northamptonshire Skittles:
- The table has 9-skittles and 3 ‘cheeses’ to throw at the skittles
- First player to 7-legs wins
- Each leg consists of 3-throws per player
- The player who knocks down the most skittles wins the leg
- In the event of a tied leg each player throws one cheese, the player who knocks down the most pegs wins that leg
Once Emily and I had received the rules we set about playing. I took the first leg 5-3, but Emily took the next two 5-6 and 4-6, before I regained the lead with wins 6-5, 7-5 and 8-7.
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| Tossing a Cheese at the Northamptonshire Skittles Table at the Engineers Arms in Henlow |
With the game at 4-2 in legs the seventh leg saw us tie 6-6. In the play-off I won 3-2 to make the game 5-2.
Emily though went on a roll and notched up an 8-9 win, scoring the first maximum, followed by 2-4 and 6-7 wins to bring the game level.
The next game saw Emily step-up and hit a 9 with just two cheeses and take the leg 4-9 and make the game 5-6, but the win was not to be as I scored a 7-5 win followed by a 7-6 win the decider to take a 7-legs to 6 win overall.
A nice village pub that is well worth a visit. There are a number of other pub games on offer at the Engineers Arms, including Darts and Shut the Box!
Links:
- CAMRA
