John Rowland wrote:

I can't work out how the name Dalston became so prominent. The high street
is called Kingsland High St, and the road from London is called Kingsland
Road. Am I right in thinking that the whole area was called Kingsland, until
the railway built a station on Dalston Lane, called it Dalston Junction, and
then Dalston gradually took over as the area name?

From: http://hoop.ground-level.org/dalstonKingsland/info

'The name Dalston is Anglo-Saxon in origin and derived from Deorlafs’s farm
(tun) on the banks of the Hackney Brook. By 1300 it had become a hamlet known
as Derleston centred around the junction of the present day Ridley Road and
Dalston Lane. The hamlet of Kingsland grew up in medieval times at what we now
call Dalston Junction. By the 1830’s the hamlets had merged and linked to the
north with the hamlet of Shacklewell and to the new development of De Beauvoir
Town in the south as London expanded into the surrounding countryside.'

Looks like Dalston took over Kingsland. I live nearby. Out yesterday by the new
line I see an alarming bit of viaduct missing - hope they remember to fill it.

E.