After the shock of his departure from the Natural History Museum, Dippy the dinosaur seeks to heal the hurt by going out on a comeback tour

When it was announced in January 2015 that London's Natural History Museum would be replacing Dippy the diplodocus with a Blue Whale skeleton it caused a storm of protest in London - and on Twitter.

Tweets under the hashtag #savedippy varied from, "When I go to the Natural History Museum I want Jurassic Park, not Free Willy" to "Removing Dippy from the @NHM_London is like removing the Eiffel Tower from Paris".

But now all seems to be forgiven - with only a few voices of protest surfacing on the social networking site - as the NHM announces the popular dino's tour dates.

The tour will see the much-loved fossil wow the crowds from Dorset to Glasgow and plenty of places in between, stopping at eight venues from early 2018 to late 2020.

Dippy's last day on show in London will be January 4 2017. He will then spend 12 months being prepared by conservators preparing for his journey.

Here are the Dippy tour dates and venues in full: 

Spring 2018: Dorset County Museum

Summer 2018 – Birmingham Museum

Autumn/Winter 2018 – Ulster Museum, Belfast

Spring 2019 – Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Summer 2019 – Great North Museum, Newcastle

Autumn/Winter 2020 – National Assembly of Wales, Cardiff

Spring 2020 – Number One Riverside, Rochdale

Summer 2020 – Norwich Cathedral

For more on Dippy and the Dinosaur Collection of the Natural History Museum see http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/diplodocus-this-is-your-life.html