22 MARCH 1997, Page 29

Victorian values

VICTORIA, Bombay's railway station, is a cross between St Pancras and the Taj Mahal. No city has grander Victorian build- ings. Sir George Gilbert Scott took time off from St Pancras to give the university its clock tower, which begins where Big Ben leaves off. Bombay weather has taken its toll on this great monument, but now British-trained craftsmen are restoring it, marshalled by the British Council and financed by British companies. I reflect that there are worse blights than weather, most of them with FRIBA after their names, and that Bombay's luck was to escape the atten- tion of this century's architects.