The town hall, which was briefly the headquarters of the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth, is a Grade II listed building.

[2] The new building was designed by the local architects, Raymond Willshire and Robert Parris, in the neoclassical style, built by William Higgs in buff brick with stone dressings and was completed in September 1853.

[3] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto Kennington Road; the central section of three bays, which projected forward, formed a tetrastyle portico with four full-height Tuscan order columns and two antae supporting an entablature, a modillioned cornice and a modillioned pediment.

[1] The three-bay single-storey outer sections were fenestrated by round headed windows with architraves and keystones flanked by paired pilasters supporting entablatures.

[7] During the Second World War, the water and gas supplies outside the building were hit by enemy bombing creating considerable concerns about the welfare and safety of the children inside.