Law Case Summary
Sturges v Bridgman [1879] 11 Ch D 852
Nuisance – Private Nuisance – Use of Land – Character of Locality
Facts
The claimant, a doctor, moved house and on the premises, he bought and built a shed in his garden to carry out his private practice within. His shed was on the boundary of the property and happened to be next door to a confectioner. The confectioner had produced sweets in his kitchen for many years before the doctor had moved in. The doctor alleged that the noise of the confectioner grinding his pestle and mortar was clearly audible from his shed and that this disrupted his amenity in the form of his enjoyment of his land.
Issues
Whether the doctor could claim loss of amenity when he had ‘moved to the nuisance’ or not. Whether the character of the area or locality as a residential area meant that there was a nuisance.
Decision/Outcome
There was a nuisance, and the fact that the doctor had ‘moved to the nuisance’ was no defence to the nuisance itself. Nor was there an easement acquired by the confectioner through long usage that entitled him to continue with his actions. What constitutes a nuisance was to be decided on a case to case basis, and it is necessary to consider the particular locality itself. What is not a nuisance in one area may well be a nuisance in another and it would be unjust if the nuisance maker had been permitted to continue with the nuisance indefinitely and without power of law to interrupt if this was to be considered a right acquired by long usage.
Updated 20 March 2026
This summary of Sturges v Bridgman [1879] 11 Ch D 852 remains legally accurate. The core principles established by the case — that coming to the nuisance is no defence, that the character of the locality is relevant to whether an actionable nuisance exists, and that long use does not of itself create a prescriptive right to commit a nuisance — continue to represent good law in England and Wales.
These principles have been affirmed and applied in subsequent case law, including by the House of Lords in Hunter v Canary Wharf Ltd [1997] AC 655 and more recently by the Supreme Court in Coventry v Lawrence [2014] UKSC 13, which revisited the locality principle and the question of prescriptive rights in private nuisance. Readers should be aware that Coventry v Lawrence introduced some nuance regarding the role of planning permission in defining the character of a locality and gave further consideration to prescriptive rights, though it did not overturn the fundamental rule in Sturges v Bridgman. The article does not address these later developments, but as a case summary of the 1879 decision itself it is accurate.
