It was built by Alexander Goold, to a design attributed to the internationally renowned Gothic Revival architect Augustus Welby Pugin, a personal friend of Sydney-based Archbishop Bede Polding.

Since that time the building has been variously used as a storeroom, offices, display space, meeting area and choir practice room.

Based on historical evidence, restoration was done to recreate the bell tower, the stone tracery in the windows and the timber shingle roof.

The furniture can be re-arranged to suit a variety of church services, weddings, spiritual talks and sacred music performances.

It conforms to a standard English type of small church with a simple rectangular nave with a square chancel attached via an arch.

[1] Externally the elevations are extremely simple with an unadorned ashlar lower section with small lancets let into the wall above a roll moulding to form a clerestory.

The open space surrounding the chapel is enclosed to each side by the southern elevation of the Cathedral, the rear of the buildings facing Edward Street and the back of St Stephen's Girls' School.

This is an open grassy area that is now planted with rows of palm trees and crossed by concrete paths as part of the 1989 project involving the renovation of the Cathedral.

Old St Stephen's Church is significant as part of a group of prominent ecclesiastical buildings of which this is the earliest component.

Old St Stephen's Church is important for its association with a religious group of significance in the early settlement of Brisbane.

Old St Stephen's Church is significant as an example of the work of a prominent early builder, Andrew Petrie, and as the product of a design attributed to renowned British architect, Augustus Pugin.