Description:Interior of the Oratory, Hagley Road, Edgbaston, looking towards the altar. The low angle of this photograph gives some idea of the scale and richness of E. Doran Webb's building, completed in 1909. Interestingly, though, the mosaic decoration on the ceiling above the altar had not been done wgen this photograph was taken. The original Oratory buildings had been erected in 1852, and enlarged in 1858 and 1861, for Cardinal Newman's community of Anglo-Catholic priests. Newman's spiritual quest took him from the Church of England via the Oxford Movement to membership of the Roman Catholic Church. A well-known figure in the 19th century, he was made a cardinal in 1879 and died in 1890.