Here's a sight to make some grown men - and women - weep.
But there's a bittersweet end to this story from Westhead's Halton Castle, once home to one of the finest bowling greens in west Lancashire...
Peter Ball, site manager for Thomas and Taylor of Liverpool, is pictured on Friday morning as work there nears completion; its top class soil has been bought by the borough council to use in its parks and gardens with some 40 tonnes excavated from the green so far.