Welcome to Dinosaur Isle, on the Isle of Wight

Visiting The Museum

The museum galleries and shop are enclosed spaces.  We want to make sure that our visitors feel safe and can enjoy their visit.

Check out the changes below to make sure you know what to expect:

Following the relaxing of covid regulations it is no longer necessary to pre book your visit.

We continue to offer hand sanitiser around the museum.

Opening times

The museum will be open at the following times:

Tuesday to Saturday only (closed Sunday & Monday) 10am until 4pm with our last admission at 3pm

With the following exceptions:

Half term: Open Monday 24th Oct to Saturday 29th Oct 10am to 4pm last admission at 3pm

Christmas: CLOSED Sat 24th - Tues 27th December, OPEN Wednesday 28th December - 31st December

For more information about our museum, please browse the site or call us on 01983 404344.

Beach Wheelchair

There has been a beach wheelchair at Dinosaur Isle for several years now.

The wheelchair was originally sourced to enable children with restricted mobility who visit the museum, to access the beach with the rest of their group. We have however always offered it for hire to anyone who needs it.

The wheelchair is suitable for children and young/small adults, as stipulated by the manufacturer.

You can hire for a day, weekend, week etc. Collection and return is during working hours unless by prior agreement. We are open Tuesday to Saturday 10am until 4pm.

If you would like to transport the chair we can show you how to take it apart and reassemble. We ask that it is not taken in to the sea.

The wheelchair must be booked in advance. This allows us to check it is available and ensure it is ready for use.

To book please call 01983 404344 or email dinosaur@iow.gov.uk

Activities

For those of you seeking a challenge indoors we have a selection of downloadable Colouring Sheets and some Word Searches . 

We have created a Bite-sized activity you can do with some simple objects and a camera (as well as learn how chelonian bone changes when it becomes fossilised). Chelonians include turtles, tortoises and terrapins, and we find a lot of fragments of fossilised turtle bone on the north-coast of the Isle of Wight, dating from the end of the Eocene. We have included a fun activity for you at the end - we hope you find it inspirational. Click on the pdf logo to download the bite-sized science activity.

Our colleagues at the Island Heritage Service have produced two family activities to download. One is on making dragon puppets;



and another on making a Roman purse. Did you know that the Chinese were writing about digging up stone dragons in the 3rd Century AD - and what they were finding may have been dinosaurs. 


Please note that being able to run events like fossil walks is affected by the current Covid19 restrictions. We hope to be able to do so again once it is safe to do so.

Travelling on the Island
Our Island roads are different. For visitors travelling by car or coach then please click here for closures or current roadworks.

Assistance dogs in the museum
A printing error in a visitor publication has led some customers to enquire about bringing their dogs into the museum. Dogs under close control are welcomed on our fossil walks, but unfortunately it is only assistance dogs that are allowed into the museum.

Dinosaur Isle is Britain's first purpose built dinosaur museum and visitor attraction; based in Sandown on the Isle of Wight. The Island's diverse geology contains a wealth of fossils that tell us much about the past and gives clues to the effects of possible future environmental changes. Starting about 126 million years ago the rocks record the best exposures of dinosaur material in Europe. Progressively younger rocks record a variety of animals that were living on the land, in the rivers, and those that flew above lakes and lived in the seas. Plants are also well recorded on the Island. These remains show that for much of the time we were once a lot warmer and further from the sea. The youngest fossils are those from the more recent cold climates of the Ice-Ages.

This story is displayed in the museum's galleries for you to learn and enjoy. We are sited next to some of the oldest rocks on the Island - why not come and join us on one of our advertized guided fossil walks.

The museum provides an all-year education service for schools and other organizations, and a programme of public walks at places of geological and palaeontological interest. The collections were started by members of the Isle of Wight Philosophical Society over 200 years ago, and have been added to over the years.  Many of Dinosaur Isle's fossils appear in scientific publications, and continue to be researched. Dinosaur Isle is the most recent building to house the collection, opening in 2001.

Our mission is “To be a national centre of excellence in the conservation, interpretation and acquisition of the Island’s dinosaurs and diverse geological heritage.”