THE mystery disappearance of one of High Wycombe's new granite balls left traders puzzled this week.

One of the £620-a-time decorative granite spheres disappeared from the Cornmarket in the High Street sometime last week.

Traders are divided about whether the ball was knocked off its spot by a truck or lifted off and rolled away by students during the night.

Roger Wood, managing director of G A Wood menswear, in Church Square, said: "I came in to work round the front of the Cornmarket on Thursday, and there it was, gone."

Gary Hawtree, manager of Filling the Gap sandwich shop, in the Cornmarket, said: "I was told some students lifted the ball off its plinth during the night. It was definitely there the day before." He said: "At 11am on Thursday workmen turned up with a forklift and tried to put the ball back, but they weren't very successful - it kept falling off."

Market traders putting their stalls up outside the Cornmarket were also puzzled by the absence of one of the town's spherical talking points.

Wycombe District Council didn't even know the ball had gone missing but our exhaustive inquiries traced it to the Temple Street yard shared by the construction companies involved in the project.

John Killip, who is supervising the town centre works, said: "The ball is now in our care at the works' yard and will be back in place in time for the completion of the works on June 1."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.