Che-9: remembering Queen Vic

When Queen Victoria died in January 1901, the Brits named pubs after her -like the one in the fictional Albert Square where so much of the action of Eastenders takes place.

In India, they went to town and built huge memorials. This is the one in Chennai (then Madras). It's in the grounds of the Government Museum in Egmore and is now a National Gallery.

This ornate sandstone structure is described as in the Indo-Saracenic style. But far from being a fusion of British and Indian styles, this is a straight lift from Mughal India.

​It was designed by Henry Irwin, an Irish architect, and based on the Buland Darwaza or "the Door of Victory", built by Akbar more than 300 years earlier in the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri near Agra.

The Buland Darwaza, Fatehpur Sikri

India's most commanding memorial to old Queen Vic is tha vast, shimmering white, Victoria Memorial in Calcutta (Kolkata). The foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales, late King George V, on 4 January 1906, and it took fifteen years to complete.

The Victoria Memorial, Kolkata

Just under three weeks after laying that foundation stone in what was still then the Indian capital, George was in Madras to lay another foundation stone to another memorial to his grandma.

The Victoria Memorial Hall was built relatively speedily - in just three years. It was for a long time in poor repair, but it has been done up, with the sandstone made good, and is now simply spectacular.

But it's not Victoria's statue, or George's for that matter, that stands outside Chennai's Victoria Memorial Hall. It's Gandhi's!

You'll find old Queen Vic hidden away in the grounds of the University of Madras's Senate House, while King George presides over a car park in, of course, Georgetown.

I saw round Egmore on a heritage walk organised by the admirable Madras Inherited. Thank you!