Exeter Hall

Exeter Hall was a hall on the north side of The Strand, London, England. 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 was formerly part of Exeter House, the London residence of the Earls of Exeter (formerly Burghley House and Cecil House), 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 was used for holding religious and philanthropic meetings, including the Protestant Reformation Society (founded in 1827), the Protestant Association (revived in 1835), and the Trinitarian Bible Society (founded in 1831).

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 were also held there and such were the significance of the political meetings that the phrase "Exeter Hall" became a metoynm for the Anti-Slavery lobby. In addition to its primary function as a meeting place, it functioned as the YMCA headquarters, 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.

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