About Dippy

The Natural History Museum's famous dinosaur cast, Dippy the Diplodocus, has left the museum for the first time to go a on a tour of the UK, and Rochdale was selected as one of just 8 venues across the UK which hosted him during the tour.

The main aim of the tour is to inspire the next generation of scientists by giving them access to fantastic, nationally-important exhibits like Dippy.

See Dippy's natural history adventure across the UK (external link)

Dippy in Rochdale - his only North West stop

Dippy started his tour in 2018 and has already welcomed over a staggering 1 million visitors as he has journeyed across the UK.

Dippy took pride of place in the award-winning customer service centre, library and council building at Number One Riverside from February 2020 to December 2020.

Touchstones Rochdale hosted an accompanying family friendly exhibition to allow visitors to delve deeper into the natural world. Touchstones Rochdale also offered a self-guided or Costumed Interpretation Tour of the dino-tastic family friendly exhibition.

Visitors could learn about sustainability and how we can safeguard our amazing natural world for future generations.

We engaged thousands of children and adults from across the whole region.

Who is Dippy?

Dippy is a replica of the Diplodocus, a herbivorous dinosaur from the Jurassic period, which is around 150 million years ago. At that time, Rochdale would have looked like a swampland.

Fossils of the original Diplodocus were found by workers in Wyoming, USA in 1898 and the famous Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie decided to fund a full expedition, so the whole skeleton could be unearthed. The skeleton was then displayed in Carnegie’s Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it has remained ever since.

Not long afterwards, Carnegie was entertaining Edward VII at Skibo Castle when the King spotted a photograph of the diplodocus on the wall. The King told his host how much he would like one for the Natural History Museum and Carnegie decided to commission a replica. It is this same replica, which has wowed visitors to the Natural History Museum since 1905, which visitors to Rochdale will see when his tour reaches the North West in February next year.
Once Dippy was unveiled in London, museums around wanted their own and 9 more Dippy replicas were created and sent to museums across the globe, including Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Moscow.