🎩 Pub Dartboard Review - The Brunel
07 Feb 2026The Brunel is part of the Hungry Horse chain of pubs, owned by Greene King. It’s not normally the sort of pub I’d seek out, but I can’t resist an invitation to throw some arrows. It has an enormous car park out the back, with EV charging facilities. However, no proper bike racks and very few opportunistic spots for locking up a bike, most of which were already taken, suggesting a few hoops wouldn’t go amiss. Although I take this quite personally, I won’t let it cloud my darting judgement.
The inside is cavernous, split between a more restaurant focused end and a pubbier set-up nearer the bar. You’re in sight of at least three tellies at all times, showing a variety of sports. Alas it was a Wednesday, missing the start of the new darts Premier League season by a day. Only Old Speckled Hen on cask, but John Smith’s on keg caught my eye and I tucked into a few. The glasses were a bit grubby, but I enjoyed the smooth texture. At £3.95 a pint I can’t complain too much.
The dartboard itself is a fairly old school Nodor Supabull 2. It had clearly been rotated a few times, but still had life left in it. That said, due to the chunky wires, staples and certain well-used patches, bounce outs were a theme of the night. Part of the large number of bounce outs may be put down to skill issues, and no injury was caused by the erratic ricochets.
The adjacent chalkboard was pretty useless. I don’t know if it was the surface or the chalk, but attempting to write on the board left white greasy marks rather than legible digits. There was also not quite enough space to the right of the chalkboard, meaning play had to pause post-throw for the score to be updated. This interrupts the rhythm of the game, and had there been more than two of us, it would have meant there couldn’t be a rotating chalker keeping score, unless someone is feeling particularly brave. However, in this instance there were only two of us, and a little pause between throws led to a more relaxed game so it wasn’t an issue.
The oche was very hard to make out, it seemed to have been cut into the carpet with a stanley knife. We agreed it was too near the board to be regulation. Fortunately the carpet was a sort of tartan number with lines parallel/perpendicular to the board, meaning a custom oche which we thought was closer to the regulation 2.37m could be agreed upon and stuck to.
As I said at the start, it’s not my go-to sort of pub. However, I did have a great evening playing darts, chatting nonsense with a mate and drinking some very reasonably priced pints.
Final Rating: 5/10
