Chares Dickens and Thurston
Dickens converted a room at Gads Hill Place into a billiard and smoking room. He even added special tiles to protect the walls from cue damage. The tiles that Dickens had fitted to his Billiard Room to prevent cue damage to the walls. January 1865 Jan 1866 Cheque for Billiard accessories Section of letter to…
46/48 St. Anne Street
E. A. Clare & Son Ltd. building in Liverpool Whilst having major building work carried out on the 46/48 St. Anne Street premises, the building was surrounded in scaffold for many months. During the work old Lamb & Watts items turned up and a rainwater hopper with initials and a date, which made us interested…
Peradon “The World’s Best Cue Maker”
(this was a message that Walter Lindrum wrote in a book to Fred Peradon in 1947) (also “1000 breaks in every cue”) The book “Billiards and Snooker by Walter Lindrum”, the World’s greatest Billiard player, was sponsored by Tooheys , it is an iconic Australian beer brand and brewery. The book had been in the…
Billiard Chalk
I should perhaps also briefly refer to the Billiard Chalk. It seems that chalk was used on the ends of cues even before the leather tips were used, in order to try and prevent or reduce miscuing. It is perhaps interesting to note that even today we use ordinary white chalk on the wooden chuck in a lathe in order to grip a Bowling Green Bowl firmly during the turning process. Originally the chalk used was white, but this made such a mess of the playing surface that the green and blue Chalks were introduced, which were not so noticeable on the green playing surface of the Billiard Cloth.
Billiard Cloth
When you hear or read the cloth that covers the slate and cushions of a Snooker (Billiard) table described as BAIZE you can almost hear the sharp intake of breath in Stroud (West of England – Strachan) and Pudsey (Hainsworth) where the last mills in the UK that produce Billiard / Snooker cloth are based. Why the intake of breath – well baize is a wool /cotton mix material used for covering card tables and notice boards, whereas the cloth used on Snooker tables is a specialist quality pure wool material with a raised nap and is a much more costly engineered product. A far superior material than baize!
Billiard Irons
The Billiard Table iron is quite a heavy piece of kit weighing in at approx 8 kilos ( 17.62 lbs). The iron should be used after the cloth has been brushed to help lay the nap. It should not be too hot as this can scorch the cloth and like the brushing is always used from the baulk end to the top of the table. It is also recommended that the start position for using the iron should be varied across the baulk end so that the when the iron is at its hottest (after being taken off the heat) is not always placed on the table in the same position as this could also mean that the cloth could be ‘heat damaged’
Billiard/Snooker Table Beds
Prior to 1826 Billiard tables (when I mention a billiard table you can substitute the word Snooker!!) had wooden beds. These beds were by no means level and it is recorded that Thurston sent out their fitters to ‘flog’ the bed i.e. they went and tried to plane off the high spots. An example of a full size wooden bed is in the Collection and there is also an 8ft portable table with a wooden bed.
Bromborough Institute
An email was received on 3rd July letting E.A. Clare & Son Ltd. know that Bromborough Village Institute, built in 1908, had an ‘old’ Bayliff table which had a E.A. Clare remodel plate indicating that the last time it had been worked on was in 1954. Nothing really unusual in that BUT the table was stored under the floor.
End of content
End of content
