Those who walk down N.S.C. Bose Road and still manage to look up at the buildings, at considerable personal peril, would have no doubt been impressed by the Pachaiyappa's Hall, modelled as it is on the Athenian Temple of Theseus with a frontage comprising Doric columns. Today the building is almost entirely hidden by shops, but in its time it must have been a striking landmark.

Construction of the Hall began in 1846 and it was completed in 1850. The entire cost was borne by the estate of Pachaiyappa Mudaliar, one of the earliest Indians to leave a Will and who left as much as Rs. 7 lakhs for charity on his death in 1794. The building became the home of the Pachaiyappa's High School and later of the College. Today it houses the Govinda Naicker school, founded in 1865.

The Hall appears to have been put to use as a venue for music performances from its inception. The Madras Jubilee Gayana Samaj in particular used it as a venue for their own performances. The Madras Gayana Samaj, begun in 1883 as a branch of the celebrated Gayan Samaj of Poona, was inaugurated at the Pachaiyappa's Hall on 18th August, 1883 (by a strange Pachaiyappa's Hall coincidence, the Music Academy too was inaugurated on 18th August, but in 1928), with Sir Charles Turner, the then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, taking the chair. Among the other noteworthy attendees were Justice Muthuswami Iyer, Sir T. Madhav Rao and V. Bhashyam Iyengar.