In February 1855 Hungarian immigrant Sigismund Wekey purchased 211 acres (0.85 km2) in what is now Lower Plenty, via The Victoria Vineyard and Garden Fruit Company of which he was manager, with a vision to start a wine industry in the new settlement of Melbourne.

A plan, backed by a group of Melbourne businessmen who would form the 'Templestowe Bridge Committee', attracted the necessary shareholders and the project was underway.

Colonial Architect of the day, James Balmain did the design as a private commission, engineers and builders were Allott and Greenwood.

The foundation stone, laid by John Hodgson M.L.C., on 18 August 1855, concealed a manuscript giving details of the ceremony.

Meantime Wekey conceived a plan for another bridge at Studley Park to improve and shorten the trip to the city even further.

In March 1862, a deputation of Eltham residents approached the Commissioner of Railways and Roads, requesting the government to buy the Templestowe Bridge then give it back to the Eltham District Road Board, as while its toll earning capability was not as "remunerative" as had been hoped, the bridge was a "great public convenience".

There were several more large floods, notably in October 1923, when the Templestowe Bridge, "a solid wooden structure on an iron girder, with stone supports" almost washed away again.

The bridge also appears to have survived the significant December 1934 flood as it is mentioned in a news article in The Argus newspaper in February 1935.

[3] Lower Plenty has a low density of urban dwellings compared to nearby suburbs, and is dominated by large homesteads that are built away from the main roads.

These are complemented by the Main Yarra Trail and the Plenty River Trail cycling and walking tracks, exposing the beauty of the rivers in a bushland setting, while joining Lower Plenty to the City and Docklands in one direction and in other directions to Greensborough and Montmorency, but also to Templestowe and Doncaster.

The built-up features of Lower Plenty are the Heidelberg Golf Club, the Lower Plenty Hotel, the distinctive radio masts that rise above Bonds Road, and the Christian Brothers "Amberley" Retreat Centre on Amberley Way, home of the Edmund Rice Camps.