Life-size dinosaur sculptures displayed at palace

Five colourful dinosaur sculptures have been installed in the gardens of a palace.

The Megalosaurus is displayed in different expressive poses in the Dinosaurs Are Forever exhibition at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

It was the first ever scientifically named dinosaur, discovered in a quarry in Stonesfield about five miles (7.5km) away.

Jay Jay Burridge of Future Fossils, who put the exhibition together in partnership with the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, said the displays were made by foam manufacturer Zotefoams with a "hot air gun, then carved by hand with large chef's knives".

The dinosaurs are life-sized, nine metres (29.5ft) from nose to tail.

Their lightweight articulated frameworks can be dismantled, reassembled and placed in different positions.

Currently two of them are play-fighting and another is lying on its back scratching behind its ear, but they are all expected to be repositioned during the three-month exhibition.

Zotefoams materials are usually applied in brands such as Boeing, Airbus and Nike.

Burridge said they helped create "museum-scale sculptures without museum-scale weight".

"It's rare to find a material that's both incredibly light and robust enough for outdoor sculpture," he said.

Their skeletons were developed with musculoskeletal biologist and vertebrate palaeontologist Dr Matt Dempsey.

William Buckland first described the Megalosaurus species to the Geological Society in 1824, 18 years before the term dinosaur was first published.

Megalosaurus, meaning "great lizard", was one of the largest carnivores of the middle Jurassic era, living about 168 million years ago.

Dinosaurs Are Forever runs at Blenheim Palace until 1 November 2026.

Blenheim Palace was completed in 1733 and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill was born there in 1874.