In the first half of the 19th century parish leaders met in a room attached to St Mary Abbots Church.[2] In 1851, the newly appointed improvement commissioners decided that this arrangement was inadequate and chose to commission a purpose-built vestry hall; the site they chose had previously been used as a burial ground by the church.[2]
The new building was designed by the architect, James Broadbridge, in the Elizabethan style,[2][3][4] was built by Thomas Corby in red brick with stone dressings at a cost of £5,000 and was completed in 1852.[3][5][6] Its completion was met with dismay by ratepayers, who complained about the outlandish railings.[7] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Kensington High Street with the end bays gabled and slightly projected forward; the central bay, which also slightly projected forward, featured an arched porch with a stone surround, a prominent bay window on the first floor and a heraldic frieze and an octagonal clock turret at roof level.[1] The unsightly railings were finally removed in 1880.[2]
By the 1870s the improvement commissioners were already finding the building too small and they relocated to a more substantial building in 1880.[8] The old vestry hall was then converted for use as the Kensington Central Library and was officially re-opened in that capacity by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll in November 1889.[9] The building remained in use as a library for much of the 20th century until the Kensington Central Library relocated to a new site on Hornton Street in 1960.[2] The old vestry hall was listed as Grade II by English Heritage on 15 April 1969[1] and, by 1998, it was "the only substantial remnant" of what the street looked like during the Victorian era.[7] It subsequently became the home of Bank Melli Iran.[10][11]
