Bowling Green Revamp: Photos
Great job this Saturday morning on the old Bowling Green. We have filled in holes, levelled out some large craters and reseeded the surface.
Many thanks to our wonderful volunteers Amanda, Mark, Mattie, Chris, Clare, Denise, Susie, Nick, Katy, Alan, John, Cecily, Isaac, Leah, Lorna and Clare G. And to Steve from CityParks, and our very own Park Ranger Lindsay. More photos below.
“It’s not our intention to restore the playing surface to the pristine state of the last century, when the council spent £10,000 a year maintaining the old bowling green. Instead, we have begged and borrowed enough materials from the council to try and reverse the overall deterioration. It is, after all, the only flat playing area in the park.”
The old Bowling Green featured in the 1983 film Wish You Were Here, see below.
In the 2015 MasterPlan survey, locals were asked: “Would you like the flat space kept and revamped to make the space more functional?” Ninety two percent said ‘yes’.
We appreciate this volunteer event isn’t going to achieve a sudden transformation of the playing surface. Major change would require profound readjustments to the surrounding area, the drainage, the soil and the grass. This will hopefully arrive as part of a future development of the park, but this initial step will hopefully make the surface more usable for current users.