. . .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[Pg 20] 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 success. . . Read More