[2] Battersea's ambitions were an expression of the civic pride of newly autonomous urban and provincial governing bodies, which looked, for models, back to 15th-century Italian city republics and the Hanseatic League, and which vied to create increasingly splendid symbols of their power and importance in brick and stone.

[8][9] A competition was held to solicit designs for the proposed hall, to a brief drawn up by J. T. Pilditch, the vestry's surveyor, and with William Young, architect of the Glasgow City Chambers resident at nearby Putney, acting as judge.

Young awarded the design project to Edward Mountford, who lived locally and was already well known to the vestry as architect of the 1889 ‘Early French Renaissance’ style Lavender Hill Library,[10] and of Battersea Polytechnic.

Equally, as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography puts it, Mountford's lack of connections meant that in the early years of his practise he had ample time to dedicate to design competitions.

[12] Work commenced in the winter of 1891-2, the vestry using direct labour - its own workforce; a recurrent feature of Battersea's approach to the provision of infrastructure - to clear the site, lay roads, drains and sewerage.

Two foundation stones date the main construction phase to a 7 November 1892 start, and the building was opened - if not entirely completed - by the same time in 1893, by Lord Rosebery, Chairman of the London County Council.

Woodwork panelling, floors and dado rails are of oak; highly decorative ceilings and friezes in the council chamber and the grand hall of fibrous plaster were provided by Gilbert Seale of Camberwell.

Relief sculptures by Horace and Paul Montford adorn pediments at the front and side of the building; to the east, Labour and Progress; to the west, Art and Literature, and in the centre, Justice and Prudence flank the crest and arms of the Parish, and Authority and Relaxation (alternatively called Government and Entertainment) feature to either side of the first-floor central window, personifications of the twin purposes of the building.

[16] The building has hipped roofs, originally of Westmoreland slate, incorporating turrets of oak covered with copper and surmounted by wrought iron.

The console was situated at the front of the Grand Hall's stage, on rails allowing it to be hidden when not in use; organ pipes were arranged in five oak cases manufactured by borough carpenters.

[22] Local government reorganisation in 1964-5 led to the dissolution of the Borough of Battersea and the incorporation of its administrative functions into a new Wandsworth council, operating from its town hall.

In 1966-1967, the new council sought to replace to replace the front section of the building and the adjoining Shakespeare Theatre with a combined library, swimming pool and carpark, an idea successfully rebuffed by a combination of the Victorian Society and a new Battersea Society, as well as Nikolaus Pevsner and John Betjeman (who thought Battersea a much finer building than Wandsworth's grey town hall).

[23] Wandsworth next sought to find tenants for the building, entering into discussion with the Department of the Environment, which was in the market for a new location for a criminal court, and with the Institution of Production Engineers; but these came to nothing.