After its closure it hosted a judo club, but is now in residential use as flats (under the name Montague Court) owned by a housing association.

A Nonconformist chapel had also been built in 1829,[3] and the Anglican All Souls Church (closed in 1967 and demolished the following year) served the area from 1834.

[2] John Hannah became Vicar of Brighton in 1870, following the death of Reverend Henry Michell Wagner which ended his 46-year incumbency.

[5] Hannah was concerned about the social and physical welfare of Kemptown's large working-class population, whose poverty restricted their opportunities for education and recreation.

[3][6] He was made archdeacon of Lewes in 1876 and in the same year founded a "slum mission"—similar to a church-sponsored working men's club—on the site of the closed chapel of 1829, near the junction of Upper Bedford Street and Eastern Road.

[3][6] He commissioned local architect Thomas Lainson, already responsible for the Middle Street Synagogue,[7] Bristol Road Methodist Church[8] and several housing developments,[9] to design a building with space for all the required facilities.

[12] Local slum clearance began in 1926 when the houses around the Pelham Institute were cleared and replaced with lower-density development.

[14] Soon afterwards, the former institute was taken over by the Sanctuary Housing Association, who converted it internally into a block of flats called Montague Court.

[18] Thomas Lainson designed and built the Pelham Institute in the High Victorian Gothic style, which was used frequently for slum missions such as this.

A doorway, with a 19th-century two-part wooden door with iron hinges, is recessed into an aedicula with a corbelled pointed arch and a gable above.