Sturges v Bridgman (1879) 11 Ch D 852
The Court of Appeal upheld an injunction protecting a doctor’s consulting room from a neighbouring confectioner’s noise and vibration. The confectioner’s long use of his equipment did not establish a prescriptive right because the activity had not previously amounted to an actionable nuisance affecting the doctor’s land.
The neighbouring premises
Dr Sturges occupied a house in Wimpole Street, London. Bridgman conducted a confectionery business in adjoining premises in Wigmore Street. In the confectioner’s kitchen, two large pestles and mortars were used for pounding ingredients. The equipment was fixed against the party wall separating the premises.
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In 1873, Sturges built a consulting room at the end of his garden, adjoining that wall. Noise and vibration from the mortars then seriously interfered with his medical work. He sought an injunction. Bridgman relied on the fact that the equipment had been used for many years: one mortar for approximately 60 years and the other for more than 20.
Why long use was insufficient
The important question was not simply how long the business or machinery had existed. Prescription can establish a right through sufficiently long qualifying use, but the neighbouring owner must have had the ability to resist the interference. Before the consulting room was built, the activity had caused no material inconvenience amounting to an actionable nuisance. Sturges and earlier occupiers therefore had no legal basis to stop it merely to protect a possible future use of the land.
It would be wrong to treat that inability to object as acquiescence in a permanent right to interfere. The relevant period could not be established by counting years during which the noise was not an actionable wrong. The trial judge, Jessel MR, rejected the claimed prescriptive right; the Court of Appeal agreed and dismissed the confectioner’s appeal with costs.
Coming to the nuisance and the locality
Bridgman could not defeat the claim merely because his activity preceded the consulting room. That point is often described as the rule that “coming to the nuisance” is no defence. It does not remove the need to prove a nuisance in the first place.
The character of the locality remains relevant. Thesiger LJ explained that an activity which constitutes a nuisance in one setting may be acceptable in another. His contrast between Belgrave Square and Bermondsey answered the objection that someone could move into an established industrial district and automatically close down its ordinary trades. It was not a rule giving affluent residents greater legal protection.
Later explanation
In Fearn v Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery [2023] UKSC 4, Lord Leggatt revisited Sturges in detail at paragraphs 38–46. He explained why the law both permits an activity while it causes no actionable interference and refuses to let that harmless period permanently restrict a neighbour’s future use. He also noted that discussion in Lawrence v Fen Tigers about changes of use and the locality might require future consideration; those questions were not decided in Fearn.
The central distinction is between an established activity and an established legal right to cause the interference complained of. Bridgman proved the former but failed to establish the latter. The remedy upheld was an injunction, rather than an award for loss of amenity.
Sources: Fearn, paragraphs 38–46, and original report extracts reproduced by Simon Fraser University.
