Saunders Ness Road was a logical renaming (in 1937) being the area of the Isle of Dogs which ended in Saunders Ness. The road had existed in its Wharf Road incarnation since the 1850s.
This section of the road, stretching east from Island Gardens, served many wharves along its length.
The road was indeed mostly industry with fewer houses. On the first day of the Blitz – 7 September 1940 – a high explosive bomb fell at the south end of Saunders Ness Road with many houses destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Further bombing on the night of 18 September affected the road with 26 killed at Cubitt Town School. Indeed most buildings in the street suffered at least minor damage in the Blitz.
Much later, after the war during the 1970s, many of the industrial buildings and wharves were demolished with the land used by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for the construction of public housing.
Construction of the Docklands Light Railway began in 1983 with its terminus at Island Gardens station.
