The interior, like the exterior, owes something to James Gibb's Harley Chapel, and especially St Martin-in-the-Fields. The site of the old Savoy hospital, between the Thames and the Strand, was by the middle of the eighteenth century occupied by a mixture of barracks, houses and churches for foreign Protestant communities. The chapel was demolished in 1875 or soon after.

Chambers was born in Sweden and died in London. He travelled widely, visiting China, and studied architecture at the Ecole des Arts, Paris, from 1749 and in Italy from 1750 to 1755. Many of his drawings from this period are contained in his important 'Franco-Italian' album, held in the V&A. Chambers moved to London in 1755 and published his influential Treatise on Civil Architecture in 1759. Chambers demonstrated the breadth of his style in buildings such as Gower (later Carrington) House and Melbourne House, London, in such country houses as Duddingston, Scotland, and in the garden architecture he designed for Wilton House, Wiltshire, and at Kew Gardens. He became head of government building in 1782, and in this capacity built Somerset House, London.