When built it was set in open fields, but within a few years it became a new industrial area with a vast population characterised by great poverty amidst pockets of wealth.

[citation needed] Rowland Hill, having a strong interest in inoculation, established one of the most effective vaccination boards in London at Surrey Chapel.

He was buried, at his own request below the pulpit, but was later re-buried below the Lincoln Memorial Tower of the successor chapel, Christ Church, Kennington Road.

These additional premises included a nearby temperance hall (leased for about twenty years from 1844 using a centenary commemoration fund raised by James Sherman in honour of Rowland Hill, thus renamed Hawkstone Hall after his birthplace); and Lambeth Baths (whose use was paid for by Samuel Morley (MP) for additional Sunday services, meetings, lectures, classes, newspaper readings and musical entertainments).

Rowland Hill's original chapel became used for various religious and social purposes, including by the Primitive Methodists for a time, before partial demolition, rebuilding and refitting works to suit it to commercial uses in 1881.

[2] Despite the fatalistic tone of the contemporary news report, sufficient of the original building was retained that it remained recognisable in the streetscene until bombed during the Second World War.

Opposite, across Union Street, is Rowland Hill House, an interwar block of council flats named in honour of the chapel's founder.