The Victoria Hall – originally the Great Hall – rises to inside the parallelogram of surrounding rooms and corridors and the enclosing colonnades. It is lined with marble-effect columns with gilt capitals and bases, with painted mottoes around the walls, including "Good Will towards Men", "Trial by Jury", and "Forward". The decoration was by John Crace, and, combined with the cut-glass chandeliers and the largest organ in Europe when opened, led one writer to say that it was "the best place in Britain to see what it looked like on the inside of a wedding cake". As the principal performance space, the richly decorated Victoria Hall is still a venue for orchestral concerts. The frescoes adorning the domed ceiling of the vestibule (foyer) were the first attempt to embellish a provincial edifice with high art. In the centre of the vestibule stands an -high white marble statue of Queen Victoria, by Matthew Noble, presented to the Council upon the hall's opening as the gift of the mayor Sir Peter Fairbairn.