ABSTRACT
While being fairly regular in form, the projecting lower storey, with its many columns and half-hidden internal features, rendering impossible access to the upper floors, would make many kinds of classical surveying difficult, but features outside the building make matters worse. It lies on what is still a very busy route, and acts as a traffic island; on either side of the road, particularly on the west, there are narrow pavements and the fronts of numerous shops and other small businesses. Setting up an instrument on a pavement would be a practical impossibility, and crossing the road to access the building itself would be very hazardous. Any kind of ‘hands-on’ survey, apart from requiring permission from the local authority, would involve interrupting the flow of traffic, which would involve in addition the police, traffic-management contractors, negotiations with business proprietors, and a great deal of time and money.
