It had no staircase to the Octagon Room. Four new rooms
had been built for me on the western side of the dwelling house, but
they were not yet habitable. The North-east Dome ground floor was
still a passage room. The North Terrace was the official passage to
the North-west Dome, where there was a miserable Equatoreal, and to
the 25-foot Zenith Tube (in a square tower like a steeple, which
connected the N.W. Dome with Flamsteed's house). The southern boundary
of the garden ran down a hollow which divides the peninsula from the
site of the present Magnetic Observatory, in such a manner that the
principal part of the garden was fully exposed to the public. The
Computing Room was a most pitiful little room. There was so little
room for me that I transported the principal table to a room in my
house, where I conducted much of my own official business. A large
useless reflecting telescope (Ramage's), on the plan and nearly of the
size of Sir W. Herschel's principal telescope, encumbered the centre
of the Front Court.
"On Jan. 11th I addressed Mr Buck, agent of the Princess Sophia of
Gloucester, Ranger of Greenwich Park, for leave to enclose a portion
of the ground overlooking my garden. This was soon granted, and I was
partially delivered from the inconvenience of the public gaze.
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