Rosemary Rigby, the owner and founder of The Violette Szabo Museum at Wormelow, near Ross-on-Wye, is campaigning to raise enough money to build a new extension to the museum to form a room where visitors could study some of the material on display more closely.

Miss Rigby told the Ross Gazette that the museum receives hundreds of visitors every year from across the world. She said that it took a long time and and a lot of effort to create the museum but now the collection of material has already outgrown its home.

Miss Rigby has had plans drawn up and planning permission has been granted by Herefordshire Council so now it is a question of raising the amount of money needed to complete the work.

The extension will be added to the side of the museum and an arch will be installed between the existing room and the new area. Miss Rigby estimates the total cost to be about £25,000 and the fund is already up to about £12,000. She hopes that the work will be competed in time or the Memorial Gathering on July 11th, 2021 which will mark the 100th anniversary of Violette’s birth.

Miss Rigby is hoping that local people will think about the museum this Christmas and may be inspired to make a donation or to organise an event such as a coffee morning to help raise funds.

Anyone who would like more information or to make a donation please call Miss Rigby on 01981 540477.See this week’s paper for the full story and more stories like this, available in shops and as a Digital Edition now.