Stephen Nunn looks back to the heyday of billiards in Maldon

If I do say so myself, I was pretty good at it – especially after a couple of pints.

My favourite venue was Maldon’s now long-gone Chequers pub, originally located at 60 High Street - albeit that at certain angles you had to open the window to cue a shot.

Games have been a feature of hostelries like the Chequers since the earliest of times - pursuits such as backgammon, three men's morris, marbles, ringing the bull, dominoes, shove ha’penny, darts and skittles, to name but a few.

Another popular activity was billiards. That game originated back in the late 18th/early 19th Century, combining a number of much earlier cue and ball versions and was once extensively played here and across the Empire.

A cue sport involving two players, it utilises one object ball (which is red) and two cue balls (yellow and white). Each player uses a different colour cue ball and attempts to score more points than their opponent.

As such it is an immensely tactical game that requires a lot of concentration.

It became so prevalent that it had its own governing body, formed in 1885, and championship competitions were a regular feature. There was even a separate Women’s Billiard Association, led by a suffragette and founded in 1931.

The game went from strength to strength and venues were established across the country – including in larger pubs and inns.

The 'Billiards' sign over the archway at the Blue Boar Hotel in Maldon (Image: By permission Kevin Fuller)

Despite that heyday, by the second-half of the 20th Century, billiards had been largely superseded by snooker and eight-ball pool.

In 1874 the Liberals opened their own clubhouse here in Maldon. Located above 52 High Street, it was alled the Reform Club and included its own dedicated billiard room.

We also know that around the same time (or perhaps slightly later in the 1880s) the White Horse also had billiard tables.

So if we could turn the clock back, where could we have enjoyed a drink and a game of billiards in Maldon around the peak years of the 1910s and 1920s.

A town guide published in 1913 points us in the right direction. It references a local “Billiard club” (but the venue is not specified).

However, amongst the advertisements, one for the King’s Head “family, commercial and posting hotel” boasts facilities which included a “motor pit and garage”, “livery and bait stables” (a place where you could put your horse and get a meal yourself, or hire a horse).

Beyond that, the King’s Head also had “billiard and banqueting rooms”. Bert N Cook was the proprietor and those wanting to enjoy a game of billiards could travel to town by train where his hotel omnibus would meet them from Maldon East, in Station Road. Those wanting a meal in between games could enjoy a “hot dinner”, served daily at 1.30pm sharp.

The main rival hotel in those days (and for many years later) was the Blue Boar, run by Jesse G Thorn.

It too had a “motor pit and garage”, “livery and bait stables”, an omnibus to meet trains, hot dinners that were served slightly earlier at 1pm, and, again “billiard and banqueting rooms”.

The archway at the Blue Boar Hotel today - minus the 'Billiards' sign (Image: Stephen Nunn)

So important a feature was the billiard room at the Blue Boar that it was even advertised on the outside of the building.

Contemporary photographs show what appears to be large painted letters on the brickwork above the arch to the yard, reading simply “BILLIARDS” in capitals within a white cartouche.

My friend, Kevin Fuller, has a number of these views in his extensive postcard collection. Two of the shots are from around the 1920s, indeed one is dated May 1929.

Ninety-plus years later I walked to the same spot to see if there was any evidence of the billiards advert still there today.

Alas, on this occasion there was no such “ghost sign”, but we know from those pictures that it was once there and was clearly as much a draw to the hotel as were its “bait stables”.