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By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Staff
Many secluded corners of Sherborn hide their own pastoral or idyllic secrets. A horse farm, perhaps. A beautiful home overlooking a pristine patch of forest, maybe. A vista over an unspoiled meadow, rife with songbirds and wildflowers, even.
One such secluded corner, however, hides something a bit more playful. Drive to the end of Cemetery Lane, right across the street from Walgreens, and you’ll find Sherborn Playground, an impressive mélange of climbing equipment, swings, and smiling children. So impressive is this park, in fact, that it made Boston Moms Blog’s list of 15 Top Fenced-In Playgrounds in Greater Boston. Boston Mom’s Blog is a collaborative blog written and read by local mothers in the Boston area.
The brand-new park, planned and constructed by the Sherborn Playground Committee, is a paradise for the area’s young and restless.
“We come every once in a while since it’s been redone,” says Stacey Balardini as her son, Ryan, plays with the nearby echo tubes. The tubes, when struck by their attached mallets, sound out musical tones in the key of C. “It’s brand new. It’s really nice.”
“This playground’s just a little bit different because it has all the different climbing areas and the ramps going up to each section.” She points at a dish swing, suspended by four chains coming from two thick metal poles. “That’s a saucer instead of a tire swing over there,” she says. “They have a few different things that other playgrounds don’t.”
Alyssa, Balardini’s 5-year-old daughter, approaches to point out her favorite piece of equipment: a sturdy tower of cables and metal that rises above the rest of the playground. “It’s called the Eiffel Tower,” her brother, Ryan, interjects. Before anything more can be said, the Balardini siblings are off to scale the impressive structure.
Nearby, Michele Rosen has brought her two kids, Natalie and Nathan (2 1/2 and 5, respectively), for a fun afternoon break. “A friend of ours recommended it to us,” says Rosen. “We’ve been coming ever since, and now we recommend it to others.” Rosen pauses for a moment to watch her children safely playing in the park. “You would never know that it’s here. I love that it’s set back from the road,” she continues. “I’m not going to freak out if the kids kind of wander a little bit, because it’s all kind of wooded in.”
Meanwhile, Nathan offers to show his favorite piece of playground equipment in action: a slackline with an additional two cables for added stability. He gingerly steps on to the line, easily making it about halfway across before he takes a peek at his observers. He takes his hands off of the stabilizing ropes, effectively making himself into a tightrope walker. “I can do this,” he says with a smile.
Nearby, his mother wears her own smile. “[Sherborn Playground] is clean and has nice shade,” she says as Nathan doubles back for another trip across the slackline. “It’s so new and the kids love it,” she concludes.
The original post from Boston Moms Blog can be found online at http://goo.gl/IgH03E.
Special thanks to Hometown Weekly intern Cameron Small, who risked life and limb to scale Sherborn Playground’s “Eiffel Tower” and procure the high-angle shots that accompany this article.
