High Victorian Gothic

High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement of the mid to late nineteenth century, seen by historians either as a sub style of the broader Gothic Revival or as a separate style in its own right. It grew out of the work of architect and theorist John Ruskin and is sometimes called Ruskinian Gothic, marked by polychrome decoration, varied texture, and Gothic detailing. Its best known practitioners included William Butterfield, Sir Gilbert Scott, G. E. Street, and Alfred Waterhouse, whose Victoria Building at Liverpool University inspired the term red brick university. The style reached the United States in the early 1860s through architects including Frederick Clarke Withers and Jacob Wrey Mould, and by 1870 had become popular nationwide for civic, commercial, and religious buildings, including many college Old Main buildings, though it remained uncommon for houses.