Located in the docks area and named after the Milewater River, which flows into Belfast Lough in this area. This river is marked, though not named, on Taylor and Skinner's Maps of the Roads of Ireland (1777), just north of the town boundary between Mt. Collier (sic) and Grove. Presumably it was so named because it was crossed by the road to Carrickfergus at a point one mile from the centre of Belfast.
There is reference in the Belfast News-Letter, 30 April, 1805, to an earlier Milewater Road. According to the Irish Historic Towns Atlas (xii, p. 17), this was probably the same as North Queen Street. If so, it was probably a different road in the same area.