Hands up those who remember the ivy-clad red-brick St Catherine’s Hospital Church Road entrance? The one that looked for all the world like some transplanted Oxbridge college, all mellow stone and mullioned windows?

Yeah, the one they’ve just knocked down. Today, as SevenStreets passed, this was all that remained of the 1861 Thomas Leyland workhouse. A portal into a fast vanishing world? Or a grim reminder that this, like Josephine Butler House, and many perfectly serviceable and adaptable heritage buildings now have ‘Exit- This Way’ daubed above their doorways?