Sam and I visited the lazy dog on a beautiful Thursday evening. The Lazy Dog seems like a fairly upmarket family-orientated pub, with a large sun-trap of a garden. Perfect for staying indoors and throwing arrows. The flustered barman was serving up rosé and pints of lager at full speed. I opted for an Adnams Ghost-ship for the low ABV, however, it was on the turn, possibly due to the heat. It was swiftly exchanged for a Bristol Beer Factory Fortitude, which went down nicely but I made a tactical switch to lagers thereafter. The dartboard is tucked away, up the stairs to the left of the bar.

The board is a moderately used Winmau Blade 6. It has been rotated, but I suspect only once, as the 13 is the only tired-looking segment. Otherwise, apart from the bull, all of the beds are in good nick. It has a dedicated light mounted on the ceiling pointed at the board, although I only noticed right at the end of the evening as we were three days from the summer solstice. The board is mounted in the ubiquitous crumbling cupboard. However, this is mounted in a tougher wooden surround, lending some much needed structure.

The oche used to be a strip of gaffer tape. Over time this has been reduced to a strip of grime sticking to the gummy residue. It still left a clear throwing line. On measuring with my new high-tech instrument; a piece of string cut to the correct length, it was spot on. There was a fair amount of space to shift left and right along the oche, however, there was a table set up quite close behind. This would not leave enough space if it were occupied.

Scoring also left much to be desired. There was a small 2000s era digital scorer to the right of the board, however, it had a dead battery. There were also the usual chalkboards on the cupboard doors, but no chalk to be found in the vicinity or behind the bar. This meant using a phone app to score. So far I haven’t found one I like, however, we discussed what we were after in a scoring app and they aren’t hard to make. There could be a link here to the created app in the future.

The room the board is in must be used as a private function room occasionally. For the evening we were there this was ideal, no interruptions and our own private set of loos. However, that means the board will sometimes be inaccessible. All in all, it is a surprisingly good set-up for a pub that doesn’t seem to prioritise darts. Definitely one I will be re-visiting when I am in the area.