But we had come for a particular reason, that reason was 12 metres long and 65 million years old. We had come to see Titus the Tyrannosaurus, a fossil from northwest America and one of the first to be shown in this country outside of London.
Of course, we had to bring Derek and Irene, and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves, watching for deer, and stealing the snacks. The weather was lovely, and we walked round through the park enjoying drinks from the café and discovering how big the deer were.
The Titus exhibition is situated in the Tudor Manor itself, so we made our way up the hill to queue for our designated entry time. It is very much recommended to purchase tickets online, and the process is simple enough via the Wollaton Hall website.
As we made our way to the entrance, we were told that we couldn’t access the hall fully, as there was a wedding taking place, but we could have a free information book as an apology.
We were told to follow the signs to the Titus, and I have to say I was kind of disappointed. The room chosen to display Titus was in retrospect, tiny. Titus took up most of the space and for me, there was little space to manoeuvre around safely. There were little exhibits that you could read about the T. Rex around him, but the room filled with people relatively quickly. And even though restrictions have been lifted, I felt that there could have been more done to prevent too many people accessing the room at the same time.
There was a really interesting room off to the side of Titus that had virtual reality sections where you could use hand gestures to create your own T. Rex. And there were a few fossils on display to emphasise just how massive the dinosaur really was.
It was incredible to see such a huge and interesting and famous dinosaur. The only other place you could a Tyrannosaurus would be the Natural History Museum in London, so to have it on our doorstep was exciting. It was great that the Mini geek got to experience the massive dinosaur, and he enjoyed using the interactive exhibits, but was the £12 a per (adult) ticket worth the visit?
Not really, it was very underwhelming to be honest, I think Titus would have benefited from being in the large hall situated in the centre of the building (they did this a few years back when Dinosaurs of China came to visit), and to only have one complete dinosaur on display didn’t really make it worthwhile. There was also no where for people to sit during the exhibition, or space for those who needed to rest. It felt like the exhibition had been squished into as small a space as possible, and I didn’t feel comfortable staying there for any length of time and I felt we could have enjoyed it more if the exhibitions were spread out safely.
It was difficult to know where to visit the gift shop, which was tucked away at the back of the building, and we did bring home a new member of the dinosaur family, Pterry the Pteranodon (The P is silent)
The day in general was fun, we had taken a picnic, there was a play park (if a little crowded), plenty of cafes and gift shops and the weather was lovely.
Just a little disappointing that despite Titus being king, the exhibition fell a little flat.
To find out more visit: https://wollatonhall.org.uk/titus/