It is not every day that you are asked to assess the condition of a 16th Century Grade II Listed building in the middle of a football match.
One of our building surveyors recently undertook a building survey of a rather interesting leisure property that dates back to around 1540. The ‘Next Door’ bar and restaurant sits in a prominent location in the pretty village of Odiham in Hampshire. However, its construction is not quite as idyllic as our senior building surveyor John Crowley soon discovered.
The property is a complex mix of ages and construction techniques. Not only this but many of its quirks are only visible once hidden voids are investigated. This revealed some fairly significant issues that will require either rectification or a discount to the purchase price.
The biggest challenge for John though, was crowd management. Unfortunately, on the day of the inspection England were scheduled to play Wales in the 2016 European Football Championships. The kick off was set for 2.00pm by which time the bar was packed making life a little difficult for John who by then was just halfway through his inspection. Always looking on the bright side, John concluded, “Thankfully England won 2:1 otherwise there might have been far more items of disrepair for me to list in my report!” It’s a good job we didn’t tell him his next pub inspection was on the day of the Iceland game!