It was built in 1859 as the Royal Victoria Patriotic School, by popular subscription as an asylum for girls orphaned during the Crimean War.

The central tower at the front has a projecting frontispiece three storeys high; above it is a statue of St George and the Dragon in a niche.

[3] It was built as the school of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum on land enclosed from Wandsworth Common, one of 53 such enclosures made (lawfully) in the years between 1794 and 1866.

[2] The money for the building came from Prince Albert's Royal Patriotic Fund, which raised nearly £1.5 million by public subscription for the widows and orphans of soldiers killed in the Crimean War.

[2] After the First World War, the building reverted to its earlier use as the Royal Victoria Patriotic School, still for girls, until the children were evacuated to Wales in 1939.

[2] During the Second World War, the building became the London Reception Centre, where 34,000 civilians arriving from occupied Europe were questioned in order to identify potential spies and gather intelligence.

[7] The importance of gathering this intelligence information, and the need to keep allies happy about the way their citizens were being looked after, meant that many efforts were made to make the camp a pleasant place to be, including pianos, films and books.

[7] One famous MI5 interrogator was 'spycatcher'[9] Colonel Oreste Pinto[10] After the Second World War, the building initially housed a teachers' training college.

[2][11] From 1974, the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building fell into disrepair, losing most of its windows, and thousands of feral pigeons moved in.

Thieves stole lead from the roofs and water tanks, allowing rain into the building's fabric: dry rot then destroyed much of the timber structure including floors and door frames.