Fodor's Expert Review Brompton Oratory

This is a late product of the mid-19th-century English Roman Catholic revival led by Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–90), who established the oratory in the 1840s and whose statue you see outside. Architect Herbert Gribble was an unknown 29-year-old when he won a competition to design the church, bringing a baroque exuberance to his concept for the vast, incredibly ornate interior. It's punctuated by treasures far older than the church itself, like the giant Carrara marble Twelve Apostles in the nave, sculpted by Giuseppe Mazzuoli in the 1680s for Siena's cathedral. A working church, the Oratory is known for the quality of its organs and choir, with exceptional music being an integral part of services here.