Fred Barned, the club’s honorary chairman, found an abandoned sand and chalk pit in Charlton, but did not have sufficient funds to fully develop the site.

An army of volunteer Charlton supporters dug out a flat area for the pitch at the bottom of the chalk pit and used the excavated material to build up makeshift stands.

The unique circumstances of the ground's initial construction led to an unusually intense bond between the club's supporters and the site that still exists.

In 1967, Len Silver the promoter at Hackney made an application to open Charlton as a British League speedway club, and plans were proposed to construct a track around the perimeter of the football pitch.

[1] However, Charlton's long absence from the top level of English football prevented much-needed renovation, because funds dried up and attendances fell.

Shortly after the start of the 1985–86 season, Charlton left the Valley, entering into an agreement with Crystal Palace to share the latter's Selhurst Park facilities, the first official groundsharing arrangement in the Football League in 36 years.

In 1988, the ownership of the club and the Valley were again united and, in a "grass roots" effort that harked back to the ground's initial construction, thousands of supporters volunteered to clean the venue, eventually burning the debris in a huge bonfire on the pitch.

It was originally hoped that the club would return to the stadium before Christmas that year, but the re-opening faced a series of delays before finally occurring in December 1992.

[6] In 2024, it was also announced a new hybrid pitch would be installed as part of a six-figure investment by the club's owners, and a £750,000 grant from the Premier League Stadium Fund.

The North Stand houses the most vocal supporters in the ground in particular the upper tier alongside a drum, along with restaurants and executive suites.

As part of the first development to the ground since the return in 1992, it replaced the massive east terrace, which had remained closed and prohibited from use since the mid-1980s after the Bradford City stadium fire.

The East Stand consists of a single tier of seats and houses the television gantry, and also has numerous executive boxes.

Occasionally, for FA and League Cup matches, part of the East Stand is used to house away supporters if the demand for away team tickets is high.