Santa:
You may have made a good move, using an alternative route on the way back. Taking 3½ tonnes off your cart springs will have raised the body quite a bit.I remember doing a delivery to a small estate in S Wales, where the only access was through a 12’9" bridge. I got in okay, but on the way out, and just inching forward I touched the bridge. I walked back to where I had made the drop and they sent half-a-dozen men down to stand in the back. It seemed that it was a regular procedure.
When I was starting out a colleague converted a tautliner to a flat this way one morning possibly in South Wales too which was a real eye opener. It could easily have me been me.
No doubt satnavs and google maps are a fantastic aid and before them you couldn’t have an A-Z for every place but often you could jump out and ask.
Passers-by back then lived in a community and they knew their community. They or someone beside them could tell you where the box factory, the abattoir or whatever was.
These days even if the passer-by could speak English they could hardly tell you where the chipper is unfortunately.
Mind you some businesses are nearly as transient as people these days.