The Oratory of St. Philip Neri, near Brompton Church, is surmounted by a great dome, on the summit of which is a golden cross. It is the successor of a temporary oratory opened in 1854, and the present church was opened thirty years later by Cardinal Manning. The oratory is built of white stone, and the entrance is under a great portico. The style followed throughout is that of the Renaissance, and all the fittings and furniture are costly and beautifully finished, so that the whole interior has an appearance of richness and elegance. A nave of immense height and 51 feet in width is supported by pillars of Devonshire marble, and there are many well-furnished chapels in the side aisles. The floor of the sanctuary is of inlaid wood, and the stalls are after a Renaissance Viennese model, and are inlaid with ivory; both of these fittings were the gift of Anne, Duchess of Argyll. The central picture is by Father Philpin de Riviere, of the London Oratory, and it is surmounted by onyx panels in gilt frames. The two angels on each side of a cartouche are of Italian workmanship, and were given by the late Sir Edgar Boehm. The oratory is famous for its music, and the crowds that gather here are by no means entirely of the Roman Catholic persuasion. Near the church-house is a statue of Cardinal Newman. Not far westward the new buildings of the South Kensington Museum are rapidly rising. The laying of their foundation-stone was one of the last public acts of Queen Victoria. Until these buildings were begun there was a picturesque old house standing within the enclosure marked out for their site, and some people imagined this was Cromwell House, which gave its name to so many streets in the neighbourhood; this was, however, a mistake. Cromwell House was further westward, near where the present Queen's Gate is, and the site is now covered by the gardens of the Natural History Museum. All that great space lying between Queen's Gate and Exhibition Road, and bounded north and south by Kensington Gore and the Cromwell Road, has seen many changes. At first it was Brompton Park, a splendid estate, which for some time belonged to the Percevals, ancestors of the Earls of Egmont. A large part of it was cut off in 1675 to form a nursery garden, the first of its kind in England, which naturally attracted much attention, and formed a good strolling-ground for the idlers who came out from town. Evelyn mentions this garden in his diary at some length, and evidently admired it very much. It was succeeded by the gardens of the Horticultural Society, and the Imperial Institute now stands on the site. The Great Exhibition of 1851 (see p. 66) was followed by another in 1862, which was not nearly so successful, and this was held on the ground now occupied by the Natural History Museum; it in turn was followed by smaller exhibitions held in the Horticultural Society's grounds.