A rather unusual exhibition is taking place at Ross Heritage Centre at the moment. It began on Tuesday 24th January and will run until Sunday 5th March. This particular exhibition, which consists of a huge collection of elephants is running for much longer than usual as the items on show are far too numerous to display all at once, therefore the displays will change each week to show a different part of the collection.

This collection of elephants and other elephant related items were left to Hereford Museum by a Mrs. Freda Makin, who died in January 2000. A proviso was made that, if the museum did not wish to keep the collection, it should be handed over to Ross Town Council. In February 2000, Ross Town Council were informed that they owned the elephants and they were taken into storage.

In May 2005, Mayor of Ross, Councillor Gordon Lucas was looking at some of the items owned by the council, when he discovered the collection and thought it would be a good idea to hold an exhibition so that the people of Ross could see it.

Little information was available about Mrs. Makin so an appeal was published in the Ross Recorder for anybody that knew her to come forward. Mrs. Freda Makin used to work with Mrs. Joyce Bengough at Nat West Bank in Ross during the 1950's. They became friends and later Freda became Godmother to Joyce's daughter Christine, who can be seen with her mother in the photograph below.

Pictured left to right at the opening of the exhibition are : Mayoress, Mrs Margaret Lucas, Mary Powell, Heritage Centre Manager, Christine Bengough, Mayor, Councillor Gordon Lucas and Mrs. Joyce Bengough. Also below is the first part of the elephant display.