It was erected between 1829 and 1831 on the site of Exeter Exchange, to designs by John Peter Gandy, the brother of the visionary architect Joseph Michael Gandy. The site had formerly been occupied by part of Exeter House, the London residence of the Earls of Exeter, almost opposite the Savoy Hotel. The official opening date was 29 March 1831. The façade in The Strand featured a prominent recessed central extrance behind a screen of paired Corinthian columns set into a reserved Late Georgian front of housing over shopfronts. The smaller hall's auditorium could hold around 1,000 people, and the main hall's auditorium could hold more than 4,000 people. Exeter Hall hosted religious and philanthropic meetings, including those of the Protestant Reformation Society, the Protestant Association, and the Trinitarian Bible Society. On 30 June 1834 the South Australia Company hosted a huge 7-hour public meeting there to support the establishment of the free colony of South Australia. The meetings of the Anti-Slavery Society took place at Exeter Hall, and such was the significance of these political meetings that the phrase "Exeter Hall" became a metonym for the Anti-Slavery lobby. In addition to its primary function as a meeting place, it functioned as the headquarters of YMCA, and as a concert hall for the Sacred Harmonic Society. Hector Berlioz first conducted concerts in Exeter Hall in 1852, and he conducted again there in 1855. On 10 May 1871, “a meeting in support of the Foreign missions of the Free Church of Scotland, and of the Presbyterian Church of England” was hosted in Exeter Hall. The former Lieutenant Governor of Punjab in British India, Sir D. F. MacLeod, presided over the meeting, which featured speakers such as Rev. H. L. Mackenzie, of the Swatow Mission in China. Exeter Hall was sold by YMCA to the J. Lyons & Co. group, which assumed ownership of the building on 27 July 1907. The building was torn down and the Strand Palace Hotel built in its place, opening in September, 1909.
A contemporary description
The following is from 1838: in the Great Hall of Exeter Hall in the 1840s. in Exeter Hall in 1846.
