Geograph - photograph every grid square

This iconic Victorian Gothic building used to appear on the cover of all the insurance policy passbooks that the "Man from the Pru" used to periodically come to your house to update.

The structure was originally built between 1879 and 1901 over several phases to the designs of Alfred Waterhouse, and intended to reflect the Prudential's status as the largest life assurance company in Britain, having achieved this position since it was founded in 1848. There were several later additions but the building appears as a coherent whole because of the sympathetic use of very similar building materials of strictly similar terracotta colours in the later additions. The building is Grade II* listed.