THE AMATEUR AND HORTICULTURAL LAW. 



31 



For instance, in a recent case a town had a by-law requiring the walls of 

 any new building to be made of incombustible material, and the question 

 arose as to whether a greenhouse was " a building " for this purpose. 

 Lord Esher held that a conservatory made of wood and glass was not 

 "a building " within the meaning of this particular by-law, although he 

 was not prepared to say that it would be impossible to frame some by- 

 law in such a way as to include greenhouses. On the other hand, a case 

 was heard not long ago in which a photographer had placed outside his 

 house a wood and glass structure measuring 9 feet 6 inches by 3 feet 7 

 inches, this erection being used for the purpose of exhibiting photographs. 

 The local authority contended that this wood and glass structure came 

 within those sections of the Public Health Acts which provide that " in 

 an Urban District it shall not be lawful to bring forward any house or 

 building in any street or any part of such house or building beyond the 

 main front wall of the house or building on either side in the same street, 

 unless the written consent of the Urban authority is first obtained." 

 The Court held that this photographer's show case was "a building" 

 within the meaning of the section in question ; so that, if a show case of 

 this kind is a building, then it seems obvious that a greenhouse must be a 

 building also within this particular section. Consequently one realises the 

 curious position that sometimes a greenhouse is a building in the eyes of 

 the law and sometimes it is not, and each case must depend on the par- 

 ticular facts and on the particular statute or by-law under which the 

 point arises for consideration. 1 Perhaps the most curious point which 

 appears in the Law Reports with regard to conservatories arose in a case 

 where a greenhouse had been turned into a bedroom. A by-law in that 

 particular locality laid down special rules with regard to the making of 

 any addition to an existing " Building " by raising part thereof. The 

 Court held that the conversion of a conservatory (made of wood and glass) 

 into a bedroom by adding brick walls came within the meaning of the by- 

 law in question, although the bedroom only occupied the same space as 

 that which the conservatory had previously occupied. 



Finally, in a case under the Agricultural Eates Acts 1896 the glass 

 houses of a market gardener were deemed to be " buildings" within the 

 special wording of the Act in question, and were therefore not entitled to 

 the privilege of paying half -rates under that Act. On the other hand, 

 nursery grounds have been held to be none the less nursery grounds, and 

 therefore entitled to quarter-rating under the Public Health Act 1875, 

 although consisting of land covered with glass houses. However, neither 

 of these two Acts applies to greenhouses occupied otherwise than for the 

 purposes of trade, and for the purposes of the present subject they are 

 only useful as bearing on the question, " When is a conservatory a 

 building, and when is it not '? " 



Nuisances. 



The question of nuisances caused by a neighbour cannot adequately be 

 dealt with outside a volume of considerable size, but the following extract 



1 Since this lecture was delivered the Divisional Court has held that a show-case 

 similar to that described above is not a " building " within the London Building Act, 

 thus reversing the previous decision and removing an anomaly. 



