Dinosaur exhibition opens with help from the Friends

This year’s major exhibition for Horsham Museum & Art Gallery – Cretaceous Horsham: Discovering Dinosaurs – opened on Saturday (January 18).

The Friends of the Museum, the exhibition sponsors, had a special preview the evening before.

The free exhibition, brought together by the Museum’s Assistant Curator George Graham-Payne, looks at the dinosaurs who once roamed Horsham District.

This, of course, includes our very own Horshamosaurus!

There’s also the fascinating story of the Victorian scientists who discovered them. These included Gideon Mantell who found large, fossilised teeth in Sussex.

Horsham based George Bax Holmes, who uncovered the Great Horsham Iguanodon, is also included.

There are dinosaur bones from Horsham Museum’s own collection, alongside loans from the Booth Museum of Natural History and the Natural History Museum, London.

The Museum’s Horshamosaurus fossils are also on display.

However, the exhibition does not shy away from the controversy surrounding the Horshamosaurus and fully explores the differing viewpoints as to the true nature of this dinosaur.

Young visitors to the Museum can also get involved with a Dinosaur Trail, searching the building for hidden ‘dinosaurs’.

The upcoming Family Craft days during February school half-term will be dinosaur themed and slots can booked via the Museum website.

The main exhibition runs until Easter Monday (April 21). Entry to the Museum is free and opening times are Tuesday-Saturday (plus Bank Holidays) 10am-4pm.