Old Coach Gardens is a residential development in south Belfast whose name preserves the memory of the former Belfast–Dublin coach route through the Malone district. Like nearby Old Coach Road, Old Coach Avenue, and Old Coach Lane, the name reflects the historical association of the area with the earlier southbound road from Belfast before the construction of the straighter Lisburn Road in the late 1810s.
The name derives from the old Malone road corridor, which historically carried traffic from Belfast towards Lisburn, Newry, and Dublin during the coaching era. A Belfast City Council report of 2024, discussing surviving sections of nearby Old Coach Road, stated that the former route “carried traffic from Belfast to Dublin” before being abandoned when the road was diverted in the nineteenth century. The survival of several “Old Coach” street names in the locality preserves the memory of this earlier route.
Historical evidence indicates that the Malone corridor was already an important southern approach to Belfast by the eighteenth century. The Irish Historic Towns Atlas records “Malone Turnpike” in 1778, “[road] to Lisburn” in 1783, and “Malone Road” in 1791. By 1833 the route was described as the “old road from Lisburn”, indicating that it had become secondary following the development of the newer Lisburn Road.
Long-distance Belfast–Dublin stagecoach services are recorded from at least 1752, while Bradshaw’s Belfast Directory of 1819 lists regular Royal Mail coach services operating daily between Belfast and Dublin. Although no surviving timetable specifically names Old Coach Gardens, the development’s name commemorates the historic coaching route through Malone.
The surrounding district later became part of the suburban expansion of south Belfast during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while modern transport routes concentrated on the main arterial roads nearby.
Belfast City Council, People and Communities Committee, “Public Rights of Way at Old Coach Road”, 5 March 2024.
Royal Irish Academy, Irish Historic Towns Atlas: Belfast Part I to 1840.
I. J. Herring, “Ulster Roads on the Eve of the Railway Age, c.1800–40”, Irish Historical Studies.
Bradshaw’s Belfast Directory (1819).
PRONI Historical Maps Viewer.