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, see the Online Guide to Traditional Games.