Sunday, 27 September, 2020
This morning I went to a pop up arts and crafts show in Dalston. ( I bought nothing but enjoyed the outing, and it gave me a chance to take a few photos to add to those I’d been saving for this blog.)
I’ve been feeling deflated recently. Too many apocalyptic thoughts. Sitting here waiting for the infections to rise and the death toll to start climbing, how else can anyone feel? Well, many don’t feel that way at all, so I’m told.
It’s easy to feel sorry for myself and my lethargy was getting me down. Going out helps me think about something else and it also helps me gain perspective.
Overall I’m an optimist. Although I’ll confess to being vastly disappointed and dissatisfied about the many things that others find great joy in, hope is always top or nearly top of my mind. I have great hope for many, many things. So think ‘silver lining,’ ‘counting my blessings,’ ‘it could be worse,’ ‘it will all work out in the end,’ and so on, and you have me in an optimistic nutshell.
It’s just three stops up to Dalston Junction – not far. It gives me a chance to look at the big picture and reflect on the back streets we walked on a few weeks ago. Dalston’s main streets at this point are Dalston Lane and Kingsland Road (Kingsland High Street).
Kingsland Road was part of the Roman route north named Ermine Street and was the Great North Road or Ware Road. In the early 1700s it was a toll road. Back then East of Kingsland Road was clay pits, brickfields, market gardens and nurseries. To the west it was arable land and dairy farms Despite being impoverished as the century went on, its proximity to the City made it popular , and by 1800 houses had gone up one by one along most of Kingsland Road, through Hoxton and Haggerston, towards the small hamlet of Dalston. Not so small anymore.
Today it’s a very busy high street and, since we moved into the area, it’s become trendy even before the regeneration started. What struck me today was how mixed the architecture and state of housing was in this area. When the ‘luxury flats’ sprang up, we’d often wonder who the tenants were that were happy to pay huge sums of money, and to look down on what’s sometimes squalid and wait for better times ahead.
The name Dalston is thought to come from Deorlaf’s tun (farm), in much the same way as nearby Hoxton was named after the farm of ‘Hoch’. The village was one of four small villages within the Parish of Hackney (along with Newington, Shacklewell, and Kingsland) together having only as many houses as the village of Hackney. Around 1280 a leper hospital was founded here but by the 18th and 19th Centuries the area had changed from being agricultural and rural to urban. By 1849, it was considered suburban, with some handsome old houses. By 1859 the railways came in and the village disappeared.
Time to move off the main road, over behind the Kingsland Road and Dalston Lane junction.
Beyond the Arcola Theatre is Abbot Street, basically a laneway leading down to a back yard. It’s a bit scary to walk down when it’s not daylight but, if you continue, you’ll hit the yard and find The Dusty Knuckle Bakery and the 40ft Brewery. The Dusty Knuckle has been here a while now. It’s a social enterprise that trains young offenders, and supplies some of London’s most renowned chefs with bread and pastries. They’re renowned for their inventive sandwich combinations, like Isle of Wight tomatoes, smoked anchovies, almond aioli, lovage, garden lettuce. or Chargrilled hispi cabbage & fennel, crispy pink fir potatoes and romesco. Their pizza is pretty good too! The Dusty Knuckle also has a school, where I learned fermentation and also how to make sour dough rye bread.
The 40ft Brewery is the Dusty Knuckle’s neighbour inside the yard. This makes for some great collaborations. When in the DK classes there was always plenty of free 40ft beer in the fridge while we worked. (I always took mine home for another day.) The independent home brewing company opened in 2015 and had just two 20 foot shipping containers. They’ve since expanded to 150 feet, have a bustling beer garden, and the original name has stuck.
This lovely door in the shabby alley of Abbot Street
The Reeves building dates from 1868. William Reeves was apprenticed as a gold-and-silver wire-drawer. He set up in business as a colourman in or before 1766 and in 1768 he partnered with his older brother, Thomas Reeves. They were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the watercolour cake. They started in Little Britain (St Bartholomews) advertising as ‘Superfine Colour Makers.’ 1868 In London City Press of January 18th 1868 E.H Horne was announced as architect of a new Reeves factory building, with Sewell and Sons as builders – their tender was for £2,343. The brand survives today, passed from father to son, and it’s the brand of painting box that sits on my shelf here. It’s good to know a bit about the brand now.
We wandered around the back streets further down Dalston Lane. There are a lot of modern buildings back here and some really nice renovated buildings too. For some very odd reasons I took hardly any photos. Where are they? The loft building, Springfield House Lofts, made me a little envious but no balconies so I’ll give it a pass. As if I could even afford a bedsit in there! (Sorry -studio, or bachelor apartment, if you prefer.)
I learned that Springfield House, formerly the Shannon Factory, is the largest surviving building designed by the “remarkable” Edwin Otho Sachs – a man so passionate about fire prevention he spent time working with fire brigades in Berlin and Paris to learn more about how blazes spread. The Shannon Factory (opened in 1902) made office and bank furniture and used many combustible products. Sachs was their man.
It’s still a lovely building. Krish tells me the rest of the factory complex is still there but I recall it only by looking at Google Maps to see that the whole factory is there but part of it is gated. Another revisit for sure!
I’m not sure if I’m excited or scared about the amount of ground and history I couldn’t cover but this was what I saw during a couple of hours on the back streets of Dalston.