Caldwell & Bishop owned Surrey Gardens & Music Hall, and agreed to rent it out to Taylor & Lewis for £100 a day.

They were going to provide a variety of extravagant entertainments including a singing performance by Sims Reeves, a thirty-five to forty-piece military and quadrille band, al fresco entertainments, minstrels, fireworks and full illuminations, a ballet or divertissement, a wizard and Grecian statues, tight rope performances, rifle galleries, air gun shooting, Chinese and Parisian games, boats on the lake, and aquatic sports.

Mr Justice Blackburn began his judgement by finding that the agreement between the parties was a contract, despite their use of the term "lease".

He further reasoned that the continued existence of the Music Hall in Surrey Gardens was an implied condition essential for the fulfilment of the contract.

Until this case, parties to a contract were held to be absolutely bound and a failure to perform was not excused by radically changed circumstances.