[1] The building was commissioned by the Poplar District Board of Works to serve as its hall and offices.

[2] The site the board selected, on the north side of Poplar High Street, had been occupied by a row of alms houses erected by the East India Company in 1628.

It was designed by Walter Augustus Hills and Thomas Wayland Fletcher with Arthur and Christopher Harston in the Gothic Revival style, built in yellow brick at a cost of £7,500 and was completed in October 1870.

The first stage involved a round headed opening flanked by Corinthian order colonettes supporting an archivolt and a keystone with elaborate carvings in the spandrels.

[8] The building ceased to be the local seat of government when the council moved to the new town hall in Bow Street in 1938.