It is a focus for theatrical and East End history, as well as a living theatre, concert hall, public bar and heritage site.

In the theatre, a single gallery, on three sides and supported by "barley sugar" cast iron pillars, rises above a large rectangular hall and a high stage with a proscenium arch.

Originally an alehouse dating from 1743 or earlier, it may well have served the Scandinavian sea captains and wealthy merchants who lived in neighbouring Wellclose Square.

Madrigals, glees and excerpts from opera were at first the most important part of the entertainment, along with the latest attractions from West End and provincial halls, circus, ballet and fairground.

During the Great Dock Strike of 1889, a soup kitchen was set up at The Mahogany Bar, feeding a thousand meals a day to the starving dockers' families.

[5] The Mission remained open for nearly 70 years, through some of the most testing periods in East End history, including the 1936 Mosley March and the London Blitz in World War II.

Throughout that time, the Methodists campaigned against social abuses, welcomed people of all creeds and ethnicity, and gave invaluable support to the local community, particularly the needy children of the area.

The London Music Hall Trust was formed by solicitor Michael Shelton, to preserve it, but the GLC, under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, sold it to the Jacobs Island Company, along with some surrounding land.

[citation needed] Wilton's reopened as a theatre and concert hall with a production of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, starring Fiona Shaw.

[8] Over the next decade Frances Mayhew and her team restored the building with a programme of arts and community activities and the reinstatement of The Mahogany Bar.

[citation needed] In carrying out the building work, a policy of "conservative repair" has been followed which means "retaining genuine historic fabric and avoiding misleading restoration, so that future generations can interpret the significance for themselves in their own way, based on the physical evidence".

It was featured on the BBC television series Restoration in 2003 as a nominee for the South East segment of the show, alongside Broomfield House in Enfield and Darnley Mausoleum in Kent.

Phase 2 repaired the five Georgian houses that make up the front half of Wilton's, having spent decades suffering from damp, rot, subsidence, dereliction, and leaking roofs.