Jews fleeing the pogroms of the Russian Empire, and those beginning to leave the East End of London and move northwards towards Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill established a congregation in the neighbourhood by 1876.

The Victorian Gothic building was erected in Poets Road in 1885,[2]: 39  a street just outside the boundaries of Dalston,[1] and became one of the leading members of the United Synagogues.

[3] Jacob Koussevitzsky, a member of the famous Koussevitzky cantorial family, was its cantor from 1936,[2]: 39  though another source says the 1950s.

[3] At its height, the Poets Road Synagogue had hundreds of worshippers;[3] it closed in the late 1960s, as the remaining Jewish population moved further afield.

[3] The synagogue site was eventually sold and the building, along with its stained glass windows, was demolished in 1970 and replaced by a block of council flats, leaving no trace of the Jewish life which existed in this area.