The Poplar elephant, a landmark in Marks Tey

Our Poplar elephant has become something of a landmark in Marks Tey, particularly in the winter when he freezes. He regularly makes it into the national newspapers and is very popular on social media. During the winter we regularly have customers taking photos of their children and families in front of him.

Our Poplar elephant is an African (pictured below). The bottom image is an Indian elephant ready for transportation to Indian Knights restaurant in Chelmsford. The elephants are made of bronze and are part of a range of finely detailed, realistic, life-size bronze animal statues.

Our Poplar elephant was given the name Eric, which was the name of Martin Cowan's father who established Poplar Nurseries back in 1938. We also now have Little Eric who regularly appears on our social media pages. Little Eric likes to lend a helping hand around the Garden Centre, so a clever member of staff made him his own little uniform!