Bagatelle to Bar Billiards Part 1
Bar Billiards is one of the most underated games in cuesports. It deserves far better coverage and a wider acknowledgement of its merits.
I first came across this game whilst a schoolboy in the 1970’s where I got the opportunity to play in a pub in the lovely village of Great Bentley in Essex whilst my father had a few beers. The game has fascinated me ever since.
Its widely thought that the game started in the 1930’s but in truth the lineage of the game goes back much further. It was undoubtedly derived and developed from Bagatelle.
The history of Bagatelle is shrouded in mystery and no one is quite sure how it developed. However it is suggested that the origins of the game probably were created in France. What we can be sure of is that betwen the period of 1770 - 1850 Bagatelle was equally as popular a pastime as Billiards.
The famous manufacturer John Thurston recorded that he manufactured significant numbers of Bagatelle tables between the years of 1818 to 1845. A sales brochure he produced for the French market actually describes the tables as “Billiards Anglaise” which adds further to the uncertainty about the game. It is possible that the French angle is completely inaccurate and the game was developed here - who knows ?
Just to prove that bureaucracy was alive and well in those far off days , the game was deemed offensive enough by the government for it to be included in its Gaming Act legislation. It was decreed that there should be “no play on a public Billiard table or Bagatelle table from 1am to 8am and on Sundays , Christmas Day and Good Friday”.
However banning anything only leads to its increased popularity and by Victorian times the game had become immensely popular leading to significant numbers of tables being manufactured for the home. The tables were slightly smaller than their counterparts in Pubs and often folded, but the quality of manufacture was very good indeed.
You can occasionally find Bagatelle tables for sale on Ebay and they are becoming increasingly rare. They make a very nice addition to any collection of Billiards memorabilia.
The popularity of Bagatelle in commerical outlets has fallen but it was known that it was regularly played in the 1970’s in Bristol and Walsall and was a thriving game at that time in Coventry and Chester. At the time of the millenium it was known that play still occurred in North Wales , Liverpool , Coventry and Bristol.
The game as played in the North of England differs somewhat from the game played elsewhere. The game starts with a black ball spotted in front of the nine holes. Eight white balls are then struck in succession by a player in an effort to get the balls to fall into the holes with the restriction that the ball being played must cannon off another ball before falling into a hole. The black ball scores double points so the aim is normally to try to roll the black ball into the the central nine point hole.
In the South of England the tables tend to be longer - sometimes upto 10 feet long and feature two side pockets about three quarters of the way up on each side. The game is played in a similar fachion , but instead of one black ball , two reds are used instead.
We have recovered a Bagatelle table a few years ago at the Leicester Oddfellows club and we believe the game is still played there regularly. I am also aware that the game continues to be played in Chester in fact the game is slowly expanding in the city again as on their excellent league website it details that a further 6 pubs are looking for tables.
Its really important to keep these games going and I would urge anyone especially in pubs to look at keeping their customers entertained by these different and interesting games.
Please have a look at the excellent www.chesterbagatelle.co.uk website
More about the wonderful Bar Billiards game - very soon !