The fossilised prints, found by workmen in 1997, were made 170 million years ago by a ferocious meat-eating megalosaurus, a smaller cousin of the mighty tyrannosaurus rex.

The rare prints are particularly important for scientists because they show the beast breaking into a run, possibly to pursue one of the vegetarian cetiosaurs whose tracks were found nearby.

The prints had been cut from Ardley Quarry in 2004 and stored to preserve them from the elements, but were moved to the museum in Woodstock in a detailed operation last Tuesday, June 25.

Archaeologist Tom Freshwater, manager of the Ardley Dinosaur Project, said: "They're such an ephemeral trace of the past to have survived.

It's amazing that footprints in the mud should last so long and that we can learn so much from them. What's special about these prints is that they show the carnivorous megalosaurus alongside the cetiosaurs. They also show the megalosaurus speeding up – the gap increases greatly, and it shows it moving at a speed of about 20mph."

Standing more than 10ft high and weighing around a ton, the giant lizard had large serrated teeth and was a formidable hunter.

When it was alive, Britain was in the tropics and the Ardley Quarry site lay in mudflats on the edge of a sea extending north and west into what is now the Cotswolds.

The prints are due to go on public display in the autumn, housed in a walled garden stocked with ancient varieties of plant such as the ginkgo biloba. The prints will be watched over by a life-size replica of a megalosaurus, and a new DVD documenting the story of the footprints will be sent to local schools.

The project was funded by Viridor Credits, a subsidiary of Viridor Waste Management, which operates a landfill and recycling centre at the former limestone quarry.

Cllr Jim Couchman, Oxon County Council's cabinet member for social and community services, thanked Viridor for its role in preserving and displaying the fossils.