Another New Game Played - Northamptonshire Skittles

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!

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.

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:

- The Engineers Arms

- CAMRA

- Pub Games-related Blog Posts on the Ham & Egger Files

- Another new game played – Bar Billiards

- A day out of fun and games in Milton Keynes and Northampton

Drinking and 'Pub' Games at the 29th Luton Beer & Cider Festival

Dominoes, Table Skittles and Gluten Free Beer at the Luton Beer & Cider Festival.

On Friday 17th February we headed to the 29th Luton Beer & Cider Festival at the High Town Sports & Arts Centre in Luton.

The souvenir glass from the Beer Fest and a hand of my Dominoes

Ahead of the event I’d been informed by the Beds & Mid Herts Coeliac Group that there would be four Gluten Free Beers on offer (in amongst the many beers, ciders and perries)! I'd also spoken to one of the organisers, who is a Coeliac, and found out the beers would be available on the foreign beers stand.

The four GF beers available were from Green's and were the Bottle Conditioned Re-fermented Blonde, Brown and Dark Ales & Greens Discovery. I chose a bottle of the Blonde Beer and would definitely buy it again. It was excellent that the Beer Festival had chosen to include Gluten Free beers on the roster too. I'm a big fan of Cider and Perry, but it's nice to go to a Beer Fest and actually have the choice to buy a Beer if I want to. 

The four Gluten Free Beers available. There were plenty of posters around the venue advertising the beers, along with a factsheet explaining what Coeliac Disease is.

In amongst the drinking me and Emily played some Dominoes in a best-of-3, 5 & 7 series to decide the Luton Drink Club Dominoes Champion.

A Dominoes game in 'action'

The main hall at the Beer Fest housed a vast array of ales and was where the four Gluten Free beers were being sold.

Me with a Gluten Free Ale and another 'third' of strong Cider!

The hall also housed the CAMRA stand where they had two Pub Games available to play – Shove Ha’penny and Table Skittles!

The Table Skittles at the CAMRA stand

The Shove Ha'penny Board

Me lining up a swing on the Table Skittles

An excellent evening with lots of different drinks to try. Roll on the 30th Luton Beer & Cider Festival!

Links:

- South Bedfordshire Branch of CAMRA

Blog Posts:

- Gluten Free Beers and Lagers

- The Weymouth Preliminaries Rock Paper Scissors Contest