The first Congregational chapel in South Australia was a provisional structure erected on Town Acre 5, on North Terrace. It was constructed of pine logs and reeds with a tent forming the interior. A design for a more permanent structure in Freeman Street (now Gawler Place) was undertaken by George Strickland Kingston with the land being donated by Mr John Brown in 1838. The foundation stone was laid in December 1839 and the building completed in November 1840, but with a large debt which was an embararrassment to the minister Thomas Quinton Stow.

The site had many tenants and uses when it was no longer used as a place of worship after the Stow Memorial Congregational Church was built in 1867. In 1987 the site was subsumed within the site of 45 Pirie Street when the ING Building was erected.