History of the Horshamosaurus

The fascinating history of the dinosaur known as Horshamosaurus was outlined by the Museum’s Assistant Curator George Graham-Payne at the Friends’ AGM recently.

George put the history of dinosaurs and their place in Sussex into context before moving on to even more local links to these ancient creaAssistant Curator tures.

He spoke of how bones were discovered in 1985 at Rudgwick Brickworks Company. Horsham Museum was contacted and volunteer and amateur archaeologist Sylvia Standing helped secure the find, keeping the bones at her house.

At first it was thought the dinosaur was a iguanodon but, following an exhibition of the remains in 1989, it was determined they were more likely a new species of polacanthus – polacanthus rudgwickensis. It was termed a separate genus – Horshamosaurus.

However, due to the limited number of bones found, there have been recent questions over whether Horshamosaurus is a dinosaur in its own right.

George revealed that an extra bone has been added to the collection; part of the dinosaur found at Rudgwick Brickworks had been taken away by a worker and used as a door-stop. It was presented to the Museum only recently.

Horshamosaurus died out, not due to an asteroid though, but by the fact that Sussex at one stage became submerged under 300m of water as the Earth evolved.

The Horshamosaurus bones can be viewed at the Museum in the Fossils and Flints Gallery.

The Museum is open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm (FREE admission).