Redeveloping our estate

Redeveloping the Toynbee Hall Estate

Since 2016, Toynbee Hall has undertaken a significant redevelopment of our East End site, where we’ve been based since 1884. Much has changed in that time, but our buildings and sense of place have continued to be a valuable resource for us and for the local area.


Late September 2018 will see the reopening of our historic buildings to the public and those who use our services. These buildings will be the home of our heritage activity programme and a permanent exhibition, a Powerhouse for Social Change, celebrating our history and those who have worked with Toynbee Hall to tackle social injustice over the past 130 years.

The New Centres for Advice and Wellbeing will be open from spring 2019 and the full site in early 2020.
You can track the progress of the redevelopment by reading our blog or redevelopment brochure:

Redevelopment Brochure


How are we redeveloping?

The redevelopment of our estate has three main elements:
● Conserving the original Toynbee Hall and courtyard, reinstating its original glory and sharing our history as a powerhouse for social change
● Creating purpose-built spaces for our advice and wellbeing services in a new building at 28 Commercial Street. The building will also provide four floors of commercial office space to generate additional income for our support services
● Redeveloping Mallon Gardens into an accessible community garden space      

Why are we redeveloping? 


Improving our existing services


New spaces in the Toynbee Hall site will enable vulnerable people in Tower Hamlets and beyond to access our advice and wellbeing support services in accessible and bespoke facilities. The redeveloped estate will enable us to expand our services to support 6,000 more people each year. The redevelopment will also allow those who use our services to access our public facilities and visit the permanent heritage exhibition.

Sharing our heritage

We want to use our heritage to inspire new generations of social reformers to find new solutions to eradicate poverty and inequality. Our redeveloped halls will inspire and play host to temporary exhibitions, films, educational and oral history workshops, and a social action programme to revive our long history of radical frontline community work.

Making our work sustainable

The redevelopment will create new opportunities to fund our services, through renting new office spaces and hiring out our historic halls for meetings, events, and conferences.

Support the redevelopment

This is a unique project with the potential to both enhance the impact of our existing work and provide a wide-range of new benefits to our community. There are opportunities to support our capital redevelopment or the heritage programme, beginning in September 2018. To learn about how you can support the work of Toynbee Hall and the redevelopment project, contact our Development Team: fundraising@toynbeehall.org.uk, or click on the link below.

Support the redevelopment

Supporting our redevelopment means enabling us to expand our services to reach more people and to create a space that inspires and facilitates community-led social action in the East End.

Be a Supporter