Occasionally one sees a building that, through a combination of factors (design, obviously, but also setting, uniqueness, materials and scale), stops one in one’s tracks. Structures such as the Taj Mahal, the Chrysler Building, Sydney Harbour Bridge, the pyramids, Mont Saint-Michel, the great temples of the Aztecs. And Britain has its share: the first time one sees most of our great medieval cathedrals is unforgettable, especially when viewed from a distance, such as Ely, Lincoln or Canterbury; or more modern jewels such as St Paul’s, or the awesome Anglican cathedral in Liverpool; and other imposing structures such as Edinburgh Castle, Admiralty Arch, or the Three Graces on the waterfront in Liverpool.

The Victorians excelled at such buildings. The technology of architecture had advanced sufficiently to allow them to build on a scale, and to a height, unseen in public buildings before. But also a nation made prosperous by free trade after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 had the money to build bigger and better, and was determined to do so not just to parade its wealth, but because the Victorians longed to impress their taste and achievements on later generations. The Midland Hotel at St Pancras Station in London, the Law Courts, the Natural History Museum, the Albert Hall, the great commercial and industrial palaces of Manchester and the central railway station at Newcastle upon Tyne are famous examples, but nothing from that era quite matches the sheer force of the impression created by the Founder’s Building at Royal Holloway, the university for women at Egham in Surrey created by the philanthropy of the Victorian peddler of patent medicines Thomas Holloway.