Bar Billiards
Bar billiards or Russian billiards is a fascinating traditional game first imported into England from Belgium in the 1930s. Designed for pubs and clubs, shots are taken from one end only which reduces the required floor space. It also means that the bar billiards table can be pushed into an awkward corner or niche thus turning a little-used area into a money spinner.
The game is time-based, each coin lasting from 12 to 17 minutes, after which the internal bar drops and no more balls are returned to the front for replay. Players score points by knocking balls into the holes at the other end of the table while avoiding three "not-to-be-toppled" skittles near the high-scoring holes and the rules are such that games are frequently decided by the last ball on the table.
Bar Billiards Tables - Reconditioned & New
| Reconditioned Bar Billiards Tables 
Currently unavailable | New Bar Billiards Table 
£1287.00 |
Bar Billiards Accessories
Bar Billiards Balls
£22.90 | Bar Billiards Mushrooms & Skittles 
£23.90 | Bar Billiards Scoreboards 
From £48.90 |
Billiard Table Covers
From £19.90 | Brushes
From £5.77 | Lighting Canopy in two sizes 
From £309.90 |
| Lighting Shades in four coulours 
From £69.90 | Bar Billiards Spares & Repair Items 
From £2.90 |
Please click here for our selection of useful spares to enable you to repair your bar billiards table. Items such as pocket lining rings, cushion rubber, scoring diamonds, rules sheets, etc.
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History of Bar Billiards
The similarity of Bar Billiards with Bagatelle, the pub game that was most popular for at least a century after 1770 is so evident that it seems highly likely that Bar Billiards is a derivative of Bagatelle via some lineage but that lineage is, at present, unknown. Beyond that assumed and mysterious connection, it isn't known how Bar Billiards originated but in the early 1930s an Englishman called David Gill observed a game called Russian Billiards (Billiard Russe) being played in Belgium. A Russian link is therefore a possibility but it seems more likely that the game was named so as to sound slightly exotic to the ears of West Europeans at the time.
Gill convinced the English manufacturer Jelks to make a version of the game which he called Bar Billiards. Pubs seemed keen to buy tables and other manufacturers soon got in on the act. The first pub league was created in Oxford in 1936 and shortly afterwards leagues sprang up in Reading, Canterbury and High Wycombe. Eventually, a governing body was formed called the All-England Bar Billiards Association which supervises the game across 18 counties, mainly in the South of England.
There do not appear to be any standards to Bar Billiards rules and at least one other variation is in wide circulation that utilises 4 skittles instead of 3.
Bar Billiards is still popular in the South of England but has, unfortunately, lost a lot of its popularity due to the emergence of American 8 ball Pool.
For more information on Bar Billiards, see the Online Guide to Traditional Games.