in november 1884 robertson told villiers that the time had come to make a formal offer to the mbw to lease the site, and villiers duly offered £2,700 ground rent per annum. the board instructed its superintending architect, george vulliamy, to value the site: however, vulliamy was old and left practically all of the work to his subordinates – goddard and robertson (it was said by the deputy chairman of the board that "mr. goddard and mr. robertson were mr. vulliamy"). they prepared a report valuing the site at £3,000 per annum, which villiers immediately accepted; this was then hurriedly pushed through the board which agreed to the lease despite a higher offer of £4,000.