Wollaton Hall museum shuts for dinosaurs' arrival

The Elizabethan-era Wollaton Hall is home to the city's natural history museum

A natural history museum has closed to allow a "massive" exhibit of dinosaurs from China to be erected.

The largest dinosaur on show at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham will be the 23m (75ft) Mamenchisaurus, which will be displayed "rearing up on its legs".

The massive plant eater would not fit into the hall at full length.

In 2011 the museum closed for several days to allow filming for the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises.

The museum will reopen on 30 June for the launch of the exhibition.

The 25 different species of dinosaur were selected for the exhibit by experts from Nottingham and China

Curator Adam Smith said: "The collection will tell the story of how dinosaurs evolved into the birds and will feature some of the biggest dinosaur skeletons in existence."

The fossils, which arrived on Friday after a 50-day journey, will be erected by a team of six specially-trained technicians.

The fossils were packed in China and sent by ship to the UK

The Mamenchisaurus, a planting-eating sauropod similar to a brontosaurus, was found in Sichuan Province in south west China in the 1970s.

Some of the 23 exhibits, including the Gigantorapror, a birdlike dinosaur with a toothless beak, are considered "national treasures" in China.

The museum and the University of Nottingham have been working with Chinese authorities since 2011 to bring the exhibition to the UK.

Once open, the show will run until 29 October.