Pub games

Pub games are games played in or outside pubs and bars, particularly traditional games that are or were played in English pubs. Most are indoor games, though some are played outdoors, e.g., in the pub garden or on the village green.

Richard Boston in Beer and Skittles reveals that the first regulation for national control of pubs was about pub games. Henry VII's statute of 1495 restricted "the indoor games which were distracting Tudor pubmen from archery".

Gaming activities associated with pubs included card games such as cribbage, throwing games such as darts, physical sports such as cricket, and blood sports such as cock fighting. Balls Pond Road in Highbury, London was named after an establishment run by Mr Ball that had a pond out the back filled with ducks, where drinkers could, for a certain fee, go out and take their chance at shooting the creatures.

Traditional pub games include:

All of the above games were still played in at least some English pubs in the 1970s, but many were in decline and some may since have died out.

Aunt Sally was traditionally played in pubs and fairgrounds. An Aunt Sally was originally a figurine head of an old woman with a clay pipe in her mouth, or subsequently a ball on a stick. The object was for players to throw sticks at the head in order to break the pipe. The game bears some resemblance to a coconut shy, or skittles.

Today, the game of Aunt Sally is still played as a pub game in Oxfordshire. The ball is on a short plinth about 10 cm high, and is known as a 'dolly'. The dolly is placed on a dog-legged metal spike and players throw sticks or short battens at the dolly, trying to knock it off without hitting the spike.

Bar billiards in its current form started in the UK in the 1930s. The tables were made by the Jelkes company of Holloway Road in London, and sold to many pubs.

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