Hidden Gem: Bocce Court at Derby Street Shoppes

Hidden behind the Derby Street Shoppes is a bocce court.

A true hidden gem, the bocce court allows Hingham residents and customers to play the sport of bocce on a professional court.

“We supply the bocce balls and there is no cost to play,” said Niamh O’Maille, Derby Street Shoppes Marketing Coordinator.

The bocce court can be found behind the Barnes & Noble and Summer Shack. When people arrive at the court, they are required to call 617-592-2110 and a DSS employee will bring a bocce set to use.  Players must also be 18 years or older to play.

Bocce is played with eight large balls, four with one color/pattern, four with another, as well as another  smaller ball called the pallina, object ball or jack, according to the Collegium Cosmicum Ad Buxeas.

To play, balls are rolled on a flat, level surface of dirt, gravel, or grass.  If there are four players per team, each player throws one ball; with two players, each throws two; with one per team, the person throws all four balls.

Players aim their balls at the pallina. Whoever gets closest, wins.

Scoring comes after all balls are played, with a team getting a point for each of its balls closer to the pallina than their opponent’s closest ball, according to the Collegium Cosmicum Ad Buxeas.

Bocce is a relaxing summer game which Wikipedia and most websites date back to 5200 BC where there is evidence of Egyptian Hieroglyphics that show people tossing a ball in a game similar to bocce.

By 800 BC, the game was picked up by the Greeks and later by the Romans and Great Britain.

The Derby Street Shoppes bocce court isn’t the only one in Hingham.  There is another public court at the Hingham Shipyard in back of the Alma Nove parking lot.

To learn more about Bocce, visit bocce.org.