Poplar Town Hall, Newby Place 

All Saints’ Town Hall was built, opposite All Saints’ Churchyard, on the site of the Parish Watch-House and Fire-Engine House, by the Trustees of All Saints Parish. The building was designed by Messrs Arthur and Christopher Harston and built by Adin Sheffield both of East India Dock Road at a cost of  £7,479.00  

Completed in 1870 and officially opened on 27 April 1871, the building was of two storeys in height with a basement.  It was built of London stock bricks, with a frontage of yellow malm brickwork and Portland stone.  The entrance had red polished granite columns with carved capitals.  Above the entrance was a balcony with six Greek figures and the roof had an ornamental parapet.  Inside the building were rooms for vestry business and a large central hall.  

With the reorganisation of Local Government in the late 1890s, the vestry system was swept away.  Local Parishes were joined together to form a huge Poplar Borough Council.  All Saints’ Town Hall in 1900 became Poplar Town Hall and so it remained until a new Town Hall was built in Bow in 1938.  The vestry building then became known as “Poplar Public Hall”.  

In a famous large-scale air-raid on Saturday afternoon 7th September 1940, incendiary bombs fell on the building catching it alight.  Because it was a Saturday afternoon, it meant that the building was empty and locked, thus allowing the fire to spread rapidly.  The building was gutted and later demolished.  Council Housing was built on the site soon after the war.