Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
London's most flamboyant Roman Catholic church, Brompton Oratory was completed in
1886 and modelled on the Gesù church in Rome. The ornate Italianate interior is filled with
gilded mosaics and stuffed with sculpture, much of it genuine Italian Baroque, while the
pulpit is a superb piece of Neo-Baroque from the 1930s; note the high cherub count on the
tester. And true to its architecture, the church practises “smells and bells” Catholicism, with
daily Mass in Latin.
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
Cromwell Rd South Kensington 020 7942 5000,
www.nhm.ac.uk
.
Daily 10am-5.50pm.Free.
MAP
With its 675-foot terracotta facade, Alfred Waterhouse's purpose-built mock-Romanesque
1881 colossus ensures the Natural History Museum's status as London's most handsome
museum. The collections are as much an important resource for serious zoologists as they
are a popular attraction.
The main entrance leads to the vast
Central Hall
dominated by an 85ft-long plaster cast of
a Diplodocus skeleton. To one side, you'll find the
Dinosaur
gallery, where a raised walk-
way leads straight to the highlight for many kids, the grisly life-sized animatronic dinosaur
tableau, currently a roaring Tyrannosaurus rex. Other child-friendly sections include the
Creepy-Crawlies
room, which features a live colony of leaf-cutter ants and the old-fash-
ioned
Mammals
gallery with its life-size model of a blue whale.
For a visually exciting romp through evolution, head for the
Red Zone
(once the Geology
Museum); popular sections include the slightly tasteless Kobe earthquake simulator, and the
spectacular display of gems and crystals in the Earth's Treasury.
Little visited compared to the rest of the museum, the Orange Zone is dominated by the
Cocoon, a giant concrete egg encased within the Darwin Centre's atrium, and home to over
20-million specimens. On the seventh floor visitors can learn more about the history of the
collection, and, in the nearby Zoology spirit building, view a small selection of bits and
bobs pickled in glass jars -everything from silkworm larvae to a jar of parasitic worms from
a sperm whale's stomach.
