It was established to serve this fast developing area of London by the Hornton Street Congregational Church situated in nearby Kensington. This original church donated significant sums of money for the project.

The new church grew to around 600 people with a Sunday school of 200 and a day school of 300. The church was socially-minded and ministered effectively to the poor in the area.

It had a pastor, Rev. William Roberts, BA who was described as an "earnest, thoughtful and evangelical" minister. The church also had a strong missionary emphasis supporting many overseas missions. Gladys Aylwood, a missionary to China, found Christ following one of the services at Horbury Chapel and Rev. Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist minister preached there.

After the First World War, significant decline set in, in many British churches, including Horbury Chapel. For this reason, it was rented out and in 1931 finally sold to a new and growing movement known as Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance.

The building was used from 1935 by the Bible-Pattern Church Fellowship (an Elim Pentecostal Church offshoot founded by George Jeffreys), and also known as the Church of the Foursquare Gospel, when it became known as Kensington Temple.

The use of the building reverted to the Elim Church in the early 1960s, and the church as it is known today was founded in 1965 by the Elim minister Rev. Eldin Corsie. Under his ministry in the late 1960s–1970s the congregation grew to 600, and then to several thousand under Rev. Wynne Lewis (later to become the Elim Church's General Superintendent) during the 1980s.

Since the 1980s, nicknamed by members of the church as 'KT', Kensington Temple has planted 150 churches across London.


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