The Liberty was probably created in the late medieval period by its removal from the Farringdon Without Ward of City of London,[1] and consisted of the part of the ancient parish of St Dunstan-in-the-West that was in the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex, the rest of the parish was within the City.

The site of the house and chapel became the nucleus of the Public Record Office, now the Maughan Library and Provost's Lodgings of King's College London.

It was grouped into the Strand District in 1855 when it came within the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

However, its boundary could be readily seen as that area of Westminster which was the conjunction between the City of London and the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn (and later the London Borough of Camden).

This apparent territorial anomaly disappeared in 1994 when the Local Government Commission for England altered the border to place all of the area east of Chancery Lane into the City.