North London Railway Dalston Junction

North London Railway
The line from Broad Street Station – and now from Shoreditch Station – continues north and is met by the line from Stratford from the east and the line to Highbury on the west
TQ 33666 84813

(For reasons of space – these very intensive inner city squares will be divided into quarters – the  north  east quarter for this square.)

Inner city area - this is what the inner city is actually about - small theatres and arts projects, lots of sites of small but often famous industries, churches - often eccentric, community projects, lively pubs, and so much else. Lots of railway infrastructure here too.

Post to the south Dalston
Post to the west Balls Pond Road


Abbot Street
3 Fitzroy House. Abbot Street Studio is a music, post production and voice over recording studio markets and events held there.

Ashwin Street
This was once known as Beech Street
2 Arcola Theatre Tent
10-16 this studio block fronts on Ashwin Street as a run of former Victorian terraced houses, now joined together. The back of the building was a warehouse/factory and they were joined together the 1960s when it was a community arts centre which closed in the 1980s and the building was squatted
Luxembourg Hall. On the site of the Reeves works, who replaced them here. This was a public hall where dancing classes and amateur dramatics were put on.
18-22 Former premises of Reeves and Son artists' colour manufacturer, here from 1866.  The main part is a late 19th factory, with fourth floor added in 1913. The 'Print House' is an extension of added in 1913 by John Hamilton & Son.  Reeves were suppliers of artists' materials. Manager Henry and Charles Kemp Wild concentrated on cheap paints for schools and beginners and also publishing instruction books. This building is the result of their success. The Education Act of 1870, which created an even greater demand for their products. They continued here until 1948 when they moved to Enfield. The building is decorated with mosaic and mosaic lettering. There is a roof garden where theatrical events take place and the building is home to many small business and artistic enterprises.
Tyer & Co., inventors of the block system of railway signalling had their works b here until the 1960s
24 Arcola Theatre. Founded in 2000 by Mehmet Ergen and Leyla Nazli, Arcola Theatre it is housed in a converted paint factory
Shiloh Pentecostal church.  A former Baptist chapel of 1871 by C. G. Seark & Son, enlarged in 1880.  Front with circular windows, and two porches with large foliage decoration. The Baptists had met in Luxembourg hall until 1868. Shiloh leased it from 1968 and bought it in 1976

Atlas Mews
Granite setts. This was the site and the buildings of a mineral water works in the 19th known as the Atlas Works. The Atlas Glass bottle works was to the west in what was Bath Row in the 19th.  They made black glass bottles. In the 1960s it was a works for Wittamore, glass merchant, beveller and silverer. 

Beechwood Road
This was previously Mayfield Road and also Woodland Road and was built up post Second World War as the Rhodes Estate
Trinity Centre. This was established in Trinity Church Hall as a charity in 1996 providing family development and child care services. It was opened to the public in 1997 after a fundraising campaign.
Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School. The school originally opened before 1842 as St. Philip's National School in Woodland Street leased for 99 years by members of the Rhodes family. In 1880 management was transferred to Holy Trinity and a Site for new school was leased in what was then Mayfield Road. It was reorganised in the 1920s for girls and infants and in 1951 became a voluntary aided junior and infants school
62 Hackney Co-operative Developments is a local community economic development organisation established in 1982 as a not-for-profit, community benefit company

Cumberland Close
Holy Trinity Church. Built in 1878-9 by Ewan Christian. It is a tall, urban church in brick with a central tower and circular turret. It contains some fixtures from demolished St Philip Dalston

Dalston Lane
Much of the eastern end is currently being demolished.
Dalston Junction Station. The station was first opened in 1865 by the North London Railway on its City Extension from Broad Street. It had three island platforms with four through lines going to Camden Town to the west and two joining from Poplar to the east. The entrance was on the south side of Dalston Lane and the station was designed by E.H.Horne. It was a single storey structure built of yellow bricks in a style recognisable as 'NLR'. Track level buildings were constructed of wood and included a refreshment room. The service from Poplar ended in 1944 and the tracks were lifted in 1966 and in 1967, the platform buildings were replaced by small shelters and in 1970 most of the buildings were pulled down leaving   fragments of wall in Amhurst Road. A booking office remained at ground level with arched doorways beneath which were parts of stairways, offices and the old ladies waiting room. These all had their original vertical wooden panelling. A large British Railways maroon name board, remained on the wall at the end of platform 6. The line to Broad Street and the station closed in 1986 by which time only two tracks remained, overgrown and derelict and a scrap yard was sited on the unused platforms. The station was rebuilt for the London Overground in 2005 and it was opened by the Mayor of London in 2010. This became a service to West Croydon, as well as New Cross, and also Crystal Palace.
Signal box.  A wooden box survived until 1985 at the southern end of the platforms.  This was Dalston Junction No.2, erected in 1872 when the fourth line was from Broad Street. The box had a thirty-five lever frame but when No.1 box closed in the 1900s sixty levers were installed which had been built at North London's Bow works. It went out of use in 1979. It is said that a natural spring here encouraged one of the signalmen to cultivate watercress beside the line.
Signal posts which had been specially constructed in 1886 to be visible above the Forest Road bridge were removed in 1956.  These were believed to be the tallest signal posts in the country, and were 60 feet high. These were replaced by colour light signals
Subterranean track bed between Dalston Junction and Western Junction.
Dalston Square. Dalston C.L.R. James Library & Archives. New library and archive opened in 2012 and named after Trinidadian author C.L.R.James, the name transferred from another, closed, library.
11 William Hill bookmakers. This was the Railway Tavern which can be seen on a curved panel at the top corner of the building. The publican of 1899-1939 Henry Aris has his name H. J. ARIS on a curved frieze above the corner entrance
12 Gaumont Cinema. This opened as Dalston Circus in 1886 but was not successful and became a variety theatre called variously North London Coliseum Theatre, North London Coliseum and Amphitheatre, North London Coliseum and National Hippodrome and London Coliseum and National Amphitheatre. In 1898 it was re-built by Wylson & Long and re-opened as the Dalston Theatre of Varieties. In 1920 Biocolor Picture Theatres bought it and it was redesigned as a cinema by F. Edward Jones, assisted by Robert Cromie. The main entrance remained part of the original Dalston Circus building.  In 1927 it was over by Gaumont British Theatres and in 1951 re-named Gaumont Theatre.  It closed in 1960. It became a warehouse for Tesco, then a car auction sales room. The front foyer operated as the ‘Four Aces Night Club’ and despite dereliction a nightclub called Roseberry’s 1994 until 1998. It was demolished in 2007 and there is housing on the site
13 Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, completed in 2010, was planted in an area of Hackney that lacked public green space. Just off the busy Dalston Lane, this secret garden is hidden behind hoarding next to the Hackney Peace Carnival mural. Visitors enter through a wooden doorway into a peaceful haven. The garden, built on a disused railway line derelict for over 30 years
Peace Mural. This was painted in 1985, and created by Ray Walker.  It is based on the 1983 Hackney Peace Carnival. The procession has just gone past Navario Mansions. The London Muralists for Peace was commissioned to create murals with the theme ‘Peace through Nuclear Disarmament’. Ray Walker died before it could e started and Mike Jones and Ann Walker completes it. The mural was opened in 1985 by Tony Banks, then chair of the GLC
16-22. two pairs of three-storey houses with shops over their front gardens.
17-19 Hackney Asian Association’s premises are now owned by Hackney Council for Voluntary Services.
19a The Dalston Picture Theatre opened in 1910 and closed in 1914. It was operated by Louis Silverman and was possibly a shop conversion
20 is the world's first urban farming hub - a workspace, cafe.  It has aquaponic micro fish farming, an Indoor allotment, a rooftop chicken coop and a polytunnel
24-30 Elise Centre. East London Innovation and Social Enterprise Centre. This is the old CLR James Library, now replaced. It was built in 1957-9 by Burley & Moore. The original library was designed by Edwin Cooper in 1913 but was bombed in 1945
27 Tyssen Arms pub. Long gone.
27d Mission of Faith Gospel Ministries granite kerbstones around the property and a cast-iron manhole cover, set in a York-stone surround
38 Free Form Arts Trust
were originally in this property until 1997
39-41 Cape House Hostel. This is the old police station with a section house behind built it 1913.  The Kingsland Police Station was moved here in 1872 and the red brick building on site built in 1914 by J.D.Butler. This closed in the 1990s
Dalston Lane ‘Slips’, mature trees in a roadside verge
46-52 terrace of three-storey, 19th houses which now have projecting single storey shops
55 the property is a good inter war commercial building. Granite setts to the cross-overs n to the front of the property
57 house from 1800. It is three storeys in brick. This was the home of the Free Form Arts Trust founded by Martin Goodrich. They are now based in Richmond Road.
Saint Saviours, an iron church, was constructed in 1874 on the site which was later occupied by Saint Bartholomew’s Church and Vicarage
Saint Bartholomew. The church originated in an iron church and from 1882 was a chapel of ease for Saint Mark's, Shoreditch. The congregation paid for a permanent building by John Johnson.   It was however closed during the Second World War and it was later used as a storehouse for church fittings. It was demolished by 1980 being exempt from regulation because the church commissioners used ecclesiastical exemption to remove the building from protection. The vicarage which was attached to it could not be demolished and remained.
61b Saint Bartholomew’s Vicarage. This was originally attached to the church which had been demolished and was built to the designs of J Johnson, in 1884-85.This was a ruin for many years but was restored as housing in the 1990s.
65 Hackney Connextions. Youth careers and information run by the local authority. It includes Prospects which dates from 1995 and privatisation of the youth careers service and now runs local authority and other services throughout the UK and beyond.
90 Donaldsons. With sign and clock below the gables.
92  This is owned by the Red Cross and a large Red Cross is painted on the side to Graham Road as well as red cross motif stained glass to the porch. It was Hackney and Stoke Newington Orthopaedic and Tropical Clinic which opened in 1919. In 1921 a Tropical Diseases branch opened at the request of the Ministry of Pensions and closed in 1923. The Orthopaedic Clinic closed in 1924, no longer required by the Ministry of Pensions.  It continued to be used by the Red Cross and also until 2012 by Rhythms of Life International a charity for homeless people. It is now used by the British Red Cross as the Hackney Destitution Resource Centre to provide services for asylum seekers and refugees and Hackney Volunteer Centre.
94 a four- five-storey house built of brick it has a prominent chimney stack and a five-storey tower
96 The Unity Club. Hackney Trades Council and Labour Party. Now in other use
Lebon Corner. Allegedly the name of the junction with Queensbridge Road

Eastern Junction
This was the side of Dalston Station that was closed in 1944 and was the site of platforms 5 and 6. These were fenced off and leased to a car breaking. The line branched off under Graham Road to meet the line to Stratford and access the goods yard at that junction. It remained in use to goods traffic until 1965.
Kingsland Depot. Opened by the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway in 1851 for the coal trade being brought from the docks. They handled general goods from 1870. Closed in 1972.
Signal box.

Forest Road
Rail Bridge
1a William Gee Warehouse and factory for the shop fronting on Kingsland Road
 

Kingsland
Kingsland was the name of this area and there have been claims that it was ‘the king’s land’ and that there was a hunting lodge somewhere. This part of Hackney belonging to the Crown when the manor was held by the Bishop of London. In the 18th Kingsland was bigger than Dalston. 

Kingsland High Street
Route of Roman Ermine Street. 
18 Kings Arms. A pub was here in 1636 and may have been called the Prince’s Arms.  It was then a building which fronted on to Kingsland Green.  It became a Charrington’s house but in 1993 was sold to Charles Wells Brewer. It closed in 2008 having been compulsorily purchased for the Overground Railway extension and was demolished in 2009
57 Kingsland Station. A station was first opened here in 1850 by the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway. North London Railway. It was a very plain two storey building with steps down to the platforms. It closed in 1865 when the Broad Street extension was built and instead a triangular junction joined the lines from the east and west and Dalston Junction station opened on the southern tip replacing Kingsland. Kingsland station was then in use as shops and survived until it was demolished and a new station built in the early 1980s.  It reopened in 1983, opened by GLV Transport Committee chair, Dave Wetzel. It replaced Dalston Junction in 1986 when the line from Broad Street closed. It now stands between Hackney and Canonbury on the North London Line
Dalston East Junction signal box. This stood Between the converging lines from Broad Street and Kingsland but has now vanished without trace.
Kingsland Shopping Centre. This was opened as Dalston Cross Shopping Mall in 1989 on the site railway goods yards off the Eastern Curve railway line.
37 The Kingsland, Irish pub 
41 Frederick Cooke jellied-eel shop. Closed in 1997. Used to have live eels in a tray next to the street which came from Ely. Became the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant but keeps its traditional frontage.  It was clearly once part of a much grander store along with 43, used as a furniture shop in the 1920s.
42 Amherst Hall was on the east side north corner of Abbot Street with its entrance in Stanborough Passage. It was designed by Frank Matcham for F. W, Purcell who built and operated it from 1908 until at least 1915. It was equipped with a Western Electric (WE) sound system in 1930, and by 1934 it was operated by Amhurst Pictures Ltd and by 1937 by Watford Amusements.  It closed in 1940 having been bombed. It never re-opened and was used for a while to store furniture from bombed out homes. By 1951 it was a theatrical store and it was demolished in the late-1960’s to build a new Woolworth’s, later a burger bar and electrical stores are on the site.
44 Fairyland was a small early cinema, most likely a shop conversion, which was located next to the much larger Amhurst Hall. It was operated prior to the Cinematograph Act, which when that was introduced in 1910, the conditions closed it down. Demolished possibly in the late-1960’s, in 2009 a Curry’s electrical shop operates from the site.
59 Railway Tavern
Subterranean track bed between Dalston Junction and Western Junction. Used as a car scrap yard in the 1980s


Kingsland road
Kingsland Leper Hospital was founded about 1280 to the south and west of the junction of Kingsland Road and Dalston Lane. From 1549, it was run as an outhouse of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Patients were sent to Kingsland with a variety of diseases. The hospital fronted on Kingsland Road with a barn behind. By the 18th it was for women only. The hospital was rebuilt in the 1720s. Rising costs forced it to close in 1760.
The hospital Chapel lay to the north of the hospital and probably dated from its foundation, and it became known as St Bartholomew’s. After the hospital closed, local people petitioned to keep the chapel. It lasted until 1846. The Star and Garter pub is supposed to have its north door in the same position as the north door of the chapel
520-522 in 1906, William Goldstein- an East European immigrant- changed his name to William Gee and opened a trimming shop with £2 worth of stock. His business expanded and he moved to 520 Kingsland Road. Although the company is predominantly wholesale supplying manufacturers and hospitals, bridal wear and corporate wear suppliers, the shop has always served the local trade. The factory and warehouse are behind the shop.
525 Brewery Tap.  An old Watney’s house, established before 1881.
538-540 Plaza Cinema.  Opened as the Kingsland Imperial Picture Theatre in 1912. In early 1933, it was closed, and re-opened as the Plaza Cinema. It was operated by Kingsland Pictures Ltd. And t closed in 1959.  The building was converted into a shop and the upper parts were in use as a Snooker Hall. It was demolished in 2009
539 Star and Garter pub, now a pawnbroker.
578 Hysteria Bar
588 Visions Video Bar
600 Crown and Castle.  Italianate building probably dating from the 1870s. A pub with this name was here in 1861 and a previous pub here may have been the Cock & Castle taken over in 1818 by Combe’s Brewery from Dickinson & Co. of Clerkenwell.  It became a Watney house, and known for music (I personally saw a band here playing on the hot water bottle and rubber duck). It closed in 2006 and now sells noodles. The crown ands castle signage remains on the street corner frontage.
Kingsland Waste market – this was between Forest Road and Middleton Road. It is on Saturdays and began as a tool market. It now sells household items, ornaments, hardware tools, clothes and household parts

Martel Place
This is on the site of the North London Line’s Eastern Curve and leads to Dalston shopping city's car park

Queensbridge Road
451 Victoria pub
Granite setts in alleyway

Ramsgate Street
Kinetica 14 storey housing block

Tyssen Street
Springfield House is the former Shannon Furniture factory of 1903-5 by Edwin Sachs.  Steelwork encased in concrete, brick-faced, with heavy eaves. It was also occupied by Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company from 1906.

Sources
Abbott Street Studio. Web site
Aldous. Village London
Arcola Theatre. Web site
Bridgeworks on the East London Line Extension. Web site
British History On Line. Hackney
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clarke. Hackney,
Clunn. The Face of London
Dalston Junction Station. Wikipedia Web site
Field. London Place Names,
GLIAS Newsletter
Hackney Society Newsletter
Holy Trinity School. Web site
London Borough of Hackney. Web site.
London Gardens On line. Web site
London Railway Record
London Remembers. Web site.
Lost Hospitals of London. Web site
Lost Pubs Project. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Robbins. North London Railway
Signal Box. Web site
Sinclair. Hackney. That Rose Red Empire
Trinity Centre. Web site
Willatts. Streets of Islington
Wright. A Journey Through the Ruins

Comments

Anonymous said…

Re The C19th Reeves building
A notice appeared in the London City Press on Saturday January 18,1868 listing tenders for building a colour factory for Messrs Reeves and Sons of Cheapside, at Dalston and naming Mr E.H.Horne architect
The Italianate design,date and location of the former Dalston Junction Railway Tavern on NLR land suggest that Horne, architect for the North London Railway, was probably also the architect of that building.

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