This congregation can trace its roots back to 1547, when villagers from the Hamlets of Bethnal Green and Old Ford met in a Puritan preaching place, probably making us the oldest congregational church in the world!

Bethnal Green Meeting House however was founded in 1662 by Rev. Thomas Walton, a minister from West Ham who was thrown out of the Church of England. He set up an independent chapel known as ‘The Bethnal Green Meeting.’ This meeting house was situated next to The Green Man pub on Cambridge Heath Road.

It was subsequently known as Kello’s Meeting House after the Rev. John Kello, who was pastor of the church for 56 years from 1770 until he died in 1827.

The meeting house then moved to new premises in 1819 further south on Cambridge Heath Road at the junction with Birkbeck Road.

The Rev. Josiah Viney became pastor of the meeting house in 1843, and immediately decided that larger premises were needed. The piece of land on Bethnal Green Road, where the church is now, was purchased and a church was built here in 1850. It then became known as ‘Bethnal Green Road Congregational Church.’

The building was extensively damaged in 1940, with the 125 foot tall spire removed in 1946 due to war damage. The church was reconstructed within the walls of the old building in 1953.

Bethnal Green Congregational Church became Bethnal Green United Reformed Church in 1974 when the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches united.

The church name was later changed back to Bethnal Green Meeting House, which it is known as today, in recognition of its roots and history.