September 2016

Secret East
Tour guide Rachel Kolsky
points out the grand, red
building in Dalston
As you walk in and around Dalston Lane and
Graham Road you catch tantalising glimpses of
an ornate Victorian red brick building nestling at
the end of Ritson Road and Clifton Grove. From
Fassett Square you can see a 1930s art deco
building. Both of them were once part of the
German Hospital.
London’s German community established itself
with the arrival of the Hanoverian monarchs.
By the late 19th Century it was centred in
Whitechapel and community initiatives included
schools, dispensaries and churches.
Further north in Dalston they built this hospital,
affectionately known as "The German". Opened
in 1845 for London’s Deutsch-speaking residents,
its first site was a converted orphan asylum. New
premises were built in 1863 and a large G, H and
1863, written in black bricks, remain.
The hospital gradually grew, providing 192 beds
by the outbreak of WW2. By then a new wing with
maternity and children’s wards and a roof garden
had been opened. Many of the patients were
Jewish, representing the growing community in
Hackney from the late 19th Century.
Curiously, during WW1 the German staff
remained at the hospital but during WW2, the
German staff were arrested and interned.
In 1948, designated in the new National Health
Service it became a general hospital. It later
specialised in psychiatric care but closed in 1987.
Listed grade II, the buildings survived and have
been redeveloped as affordable housing.
The Hamburg Lutheran Church, built alongside
the hospital in 1875/6, was the hospital chapel. Its
pastor, Rev Schonberger, a Nazi sympathiser, fled
England in 1939 and the church closed.
Also listed Grade II, it reopened in 1982 as the
Pentecostal Faith Tabernacle Church.
Tour guide and historian Rachel is always
seeking the human stories behind the buildings.
You will spot her all over London carrying a
large colourful fluffy flower, with a group of
people following behind. Upcoming tours in the
Love East area include Stokey: A Misty Village and
Clapton. golondontours.com
30 LOVEEAST