Victorian engineers invented a thousand things, but above all others they mastered spans, and what timing. Just as the railways were ploughing through fresh fields, linking villages to towns, coal yards to industry. Sheds were getting bigger and a lid was required to keep the weather out.
Walking into the Natural History Museum in Oxford is not far off the experience entering a busy railway terminus. Dinosaurs roam in this space where commuters could quite easily replace the scene.
Marble wraps every pillar which circles the great expanse, but this is a sideshow, the standing ovation given over to the great height as iron frames soar to let the light float through.
The British weather might not be able to ambush and howl, but the trick was to coerce just a little of it to be let in.