Rare Dalston Theatre poster brought home to Hackney from a resort hotel on the Continent

A LARGE AND BEAUTIFUL MEMENTO of the lost theatre of Dalston Lane has been found in the seaside resort of Ostend in Belgium.

The vivaciously drawn poster for the theatre has been imported to London by its finder, Jean Field and her husband David. The Hackney couple want to lend the art nouveau drawing, which measures 2.75m by 1.95m to Hackney council archives.

theatre16: Dalston Theatre poster (photocopy in hand) 251016 rescued by Jean Field © DavidAltheer [at] gmail.com — Hot spot: the poster advertises the venue, which was a hit with Edwardian scenesters

Older locals will recall that it was the council that demolished the once-magnificent Dalston Theatre for a property site, despite a resourceful attempt by community group Open Dalston to save it.

Mrs Field, who took part in the campaign, told Loving Dalston that she had been “in love with Ostend “ever since her father took her there as a child in the 1950s”.

She added: “David and I now try to go three times a year. We love art and there used to be an Ostend art prize, so they had art coming out of their ears.

“The art there was way in advance of anything over here and Ostend, very much a Protestant area, is very English. It was fashionable for a long time.” See poster below right.

For several years the couple had stayed in the same hotel, the Andromeda, “overlooking the fabulous beach”. Mrs Field said: “The owner was an art collector and hanging on the stairs was a huge poster. When we first saw it we noticed the words ‘Dalston Theatre’ on it. We thought it must be Dalston in Cumbria.”

A closer look showed the poster was indeed for the Hackney venue and had been created more than a century before the theatre, or what was left of it, was felled by Mayor Jules Pipe’s Hackney regime. She photographed the poster, left, despite its being in an awkward position.

Ostend: poster advertising the "Queen of Beaches". Owned by Jean Field © DavidAltheer [at] gmail.com — Ostend, “Queen of Beaches”, attracted many English holidayers in the early 1900s

“It was purely publicising the theatre, “Mrs Field said. “We started to covet the poster. Even when we weren’t staying at the Andromeda, we’d go to say Hello to it.”

In 2014 the hotel was sold after the death of the owner. Mrs Field made an offer for the picture, and recently it was accepted.

She would like the poster to go on public show at the Dalston Lane archives which is, paradoxically where the theatre stood before Hackney council let it fall to its apocalyptic fate.

David Altheer 071116

* Backstory: Farewell, Mayor Pipe; Hackney OKd to demolish Dalston terrace; Hackney regeneration — or gentrification?; News site saves CLR James and archives names

* The Fields’s help with illustrations is gratefully acknowledged. Another poster can be seen at this site. All pictures on this page © David Altheer [at] gmail.com, and all for sale for reproduction. Most photographs are available in bigger formats

* Emboldened underscored words in most cases indicate a hyperlink, a reader service rare among websites. If a link does not work, it is probably because the site to which the URL refers has not been maintained.

This site welcomes fair comments, including the critical. They may be edited for grammatical, legal or taste reasons, or for shortening. In the unlikely event that anything defamatory is posted, the sender’s details may have to be divulged. (Under UK law, this applies to any comment/discussion forum, eg, Twitter.) RSS feed link is at top right. Twitter: @lovingdalston Publicists, amateur and professional, should read http://bit.ly/ZnClKc Also relevant may be the note at the end of http://bit.ly/117GXmi Photographs © David Altheer unless otherwise stated and apart from supplied pictures

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