Up in the tennis courts next to the Ranger’s House, there’s a little mystery. It’s a kind of black hole in Blackheath where strange things happen. Anyone who has played on Court 3 will doubtless have experienced the strange phenomenon where tennis balls go into the hedge and never come out. Even if you watch hawk-like as your ball goes into this hedge, you go to retrieve it from the spot that you know your ball went in at and it has simply vanished.
You shake your head in disbelief at the hedge’s ability to steal balls. There’s a moment of mini euphoria when you spot a flash of yellow, plucking it from deep within the leaves like a rare fruit, followed by the sinking feeling of realisation that the hedge is returning someone else’s lost ball but not your own. It’s almost as if the balls disappear through the hedge into a Harry Potter-esque Court 3 3/4.