Swing Bridge on Preston's Road
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Title
Swing Bridge on Preston's Road
Swing Bridge on Preston's Road
Reference
SC_PHL_01_293_74_120_373_12 (Collage 98974)
Date
Collection
London Metropolitan Archives: LCC Photograph Library
Description
General view of Preston's Road, Poplar with the swing bridge over Blackwall entrance lock to the West India Docks, looking south. The road was named after land in the area owned by Sir Robert Preston (1740-1834) of Woodford, who had made his fortune as a captain in the East India Company. This stretch of Preston's Road between Poplar High Street and the bridge over the Blackwall entrance to the West India Docks was laid out in 1827–9 by the West India Dock Company, replacing the existing road whose route lay some 300ft to the west. The swing bridge has separate lanes for traffic and is of riveted iron construction. The entrance onto the swing bridge, with an illuminated keep left bollard in the centre and concrete street lamps either side of the road, was notoriously narrow which caused problems for larger vehicles. Along both sides of the road are the high boundary walls of the docks and in the background are brick, flat roofed buildings. On the left of the road is a red traffic light to stop traffic when the bridge was in operation. An articulated lorry (registration UMK 466F) carrying a shipping container enters the tight bridge lane followed by a Fiat 850. In 1987 the middle lock gates were removed and the entrance lock dammed and not long afterwards the bridge was removed and Preston’s Road was broadened and straightened.
General view of Preston's Road, Poplar with the swing bridge over Blackwall entrance lock to the West India Docks, looking south. The road was named after land in the area owned by Sir Robert Preston (1740-1834) of Woodford, who had made his fortune as a captain in the East India Company. This stretch of Preston's Road between Poplar High Street and the bridge over the Blackwall entrance to the West India Docks was laid out in 1827–9 by the West India Dock Company, replacing the existing road whose route lay some 300ft to the west. The swing bridge has separate lanes for traffic and is of riveted iron construction. The entrance onto the swing bridge, with an illuminated keep left bollard in the centre and concrete street lamps either side of the road, was notoriously narrow which caused problems for larger vehicles. Along both sides of the road are the high boundary walls of the docks and in the background are brick, flat roofed buildings. On the left of the road is a red traffic light to stop traffic when the bridge was in operation. An articulated lorry (registration UMK 466F) carrying a shipping container enters the tight bridge lane followed by a Fiat 850. In 1987 the middle lock gates were removed and the entrance lock dammed and not long afterwards the bridge was removed and Preston’s Road was broadened and straightened.
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