River Way is a short street with a long history.
River Way dates ultimately from 1801 with the first appearance in the Greenwich rate books with occupants in 1804.
The site had been owned by George Russell (died in 1806). He was a soap maker of Blackfriars but had been using this part of the Greenwich Marsh as a brickfield.
In 1800, William Johnson of Bromley, Kent, had patented a tidal water wheel but lacked a site for it. In September 1801, he came to an agreement with George Russell and applied to the Commission of Sewers for ’permission to open the sea wall’.
Ceylon Place was built and the extension of the cottages to the Thames were called River Terrace and the road (eventually) River Way leading to the "Causeway in Bugsby’s Hole", licensed to Russell in 1801.
The land around quickly industrialised at the dawn of the twentieth century, River Way becoming sandwiches between a power station and a steel works.
River Way is a short street with a long history.
