Where: Humphry’s Café, The Highams Park
Open: 9am – 5pm/dusk (whichever is sooner)
Equipment: Available from the café
Cost: Free
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Before you book
- Treat our equipment with care, and return it to Humphry’s Café when you have finished. Do not pass it on to the next person. If items are missing or damaged, you may be held responsible
- When you rake the surface of the pétanque terrain, do it gently taking care not to disturb the larger stones beneath the playing surface
- Keep the gate shut at all times whilst you are playing, and when you’ve finished
- If you wish to book both pétanque lanes, make two separate bookings for the same time. The first booking will be for lane A, the second for lane B.
How to play boules/pétanque
A copy of the rules will be provided with the boules equipment but you can read them here: The rules for boules/petanque
Why can I play boules in Highams Park?
The idea of constructing a boules/petanque terrain (sometimes called a court of a pitch) in the park arose during the consultations on the Highams Park Plan.
During construction of the boules terrain volunteers from the Highams Park Snedders removed around 14 tons of top soil, laid the base with 9 tons of aggregate, then finished the surface with three tons of ‘petanque mix’ (6mm granite chips) and dug out around forty post holes.
We should like to extend our grateful thanks to those volunteers who designed and constructed the boules pitch. With particular thanks to Dennis Richardson who was team leader on this project; we have included a few photos below, so you can see them in action.
We should also like to say a big thank you to the Councillors of Hatch Lane and Hale End & Highams Park Ward for approving the Ward Forum funding which made this project possible by providing the lion’s share of the funding.
Some funding was provided by HPPG’s project arm Highams Park Community CIC
And, last but not least, we should like to thank Toni Hanshaw and her team at Humphry’s Café who kept the volunteers fed and watered for free during the works.
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Funded by Community Ward Forum Funding provided by Hatch Lane and Highams Park & Hale End wards.
