Designed by an architect who can be said to have left his mark in Singapore, the Art Deco building that we know today as The Quadrant was originally built as a headquarters for a Chinese bank.

The main feature of the building’s interiors was its banking hall and a mezzanine – from which bank managers could supervise the goings on in the hall below. Both are very much in evidence today, as is a bank vault, even if the building has long been re-purposed. Another highlight is a working vintage lift. Although substantially rebuilt, it has quite a number of its original components such as its counterweight, still in use.

The visit will take place on 1 December 2018 from 9.30 am. As spaces are limited to 30 pax and participants over the age of 18 years, pre-registration is required. Please do so by filling the form found at this link (please click).

Do note that unique registrations are required and duplicate entries of the same particulars would count as one registration.

The visit is part of the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of State Property visits supported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). This visit to The Quadrant also has the support of the Homestead Group and The Black Swan.

The Quadrant at Cecil Street.

Up on the roof.

Stairway to heaven?

The gates of a heavenly vintage lift.

Some of the lift’s original mechanism.

Such is the pace at which change takes place that little exists of the Singapore those of my generation grew up with. It was one whose city streets and rural spaces, filled with life and colour, were places to discover. Lost to progress, that Singapore can never be revisited again – except perhaps through images that we are fortunate to see of them.

In Conversation with Paul Piollet.

I, for one, am especially grateful to the good folks behind these images. Several collections have been publicly available through their generous donations or in some cases, through donations made by family members. These images provide us, and our generations with a visual record that in many cases would not otherwise exist of places and more importantly a way of life from a time when few had the means to capture them.

The opportunity to hear from the donors of two of these visual collections came our way this November. The first, Dr Clifford Saunders, donated an extensive and very well documented collection of over 1,400 photographs to the National Heritage Board. The images were taken by his father, Ralph Charles Saunders in the late 1950s, when he was stationed here at RAF Seletar – with his family, which included a young Dr Saunders.

Just in the middle of the last week, we were graced by the visit of another donor, Mr Paul Piollet, with whom we were able to hold a “conversation” with at the Urban Redevelopment Authority as part of the Architectural Heritage Season. The unassuming Mr Piollet, now in his 80s, has certainly had a past. His career in oil took him across the world, and he found himself in Balikpapan in Kalimantan in 1970 as a result of that. It was there that he developed a fascination for Indonesia and its maritime heritage. He would also find himself in Singapore, where he immersed himself in much that went on around and on its lively streets.

Mr Piollet’s photos of a Singapore in transition are especially intriguing. We find in them a record of life and a way of life of a Singapore in transition. We can see what fascinated Mr Piollet from the many images of wayangs, the life that went on backstage, elaborate Chinese funerals and of life on Singapore’s living streets, which were not only full of life but also filled with children (an observation was made during the “conversation” of how children are now missing from our city streets). Images of street food vendors, which Mr Piollet regularly frequented (he rattled off a few Hokkien names of local fare he enjoyed), also features in his collection.

While the focus of the “conversation” may have been on his images of Singapore (more than 180 can be found in the National Archives of Singapore), I was fortunate to be able to hear about his efforts to document the Indonesian maritime world through a brief conversation we had just before the event started.  Of particular interest to him were the wooden sail boats and the people who crewed them. Much of the craft and skill in rigging and sailing these beautiful hand-crafted boats, once a backbone of trade across parts of the widely spread archipelago, have quite sadly been lost to motorisation.

Pages out of one of Mr Piollet’s books, “Équipages et voiliers de Madura”, documenting Indonesia’s lost maritime heritage.

Thankfully, there are at least thousands of photos taken by Mr Piollet, as well as several books that he authored. Along with photographs and sketches that Mr Piollet made, there are also registry records that he copied by hand. Mr Piollet’s books, of ways of life that have since been lost, can be found at the French Bookshop at 55 Tiong Bahru Road.

“Équipages et voiliers de Madura” or “The crews and boats of Madura”, which Mr Piollet very kindly gave me a copy of.

A selection of photographs from the Paul Piollet Collection

One of Mr Piollet’s photos from 1975. A lost corner of Singapore that was familiar to my parents and me – where Rangoon Road met Norfolk Road and Moulmein Green – see : Moulmein Road Journeys (Paul Piollet Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore).

I thought this looks similar to the hairdresser that my mother used to visit at Rangoon Road with me in tow. From its name, this wasn’t it and only closer examination, looks like it was located in the row of shophouses close to the Balestier Road end of Tessensohn Road (Paul Piollet Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore).

What looks like part of the row of shophouses close to the Balestier Road end of Tessensohn Road (Paul Piollet Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore).

Life as it was, when streets were not complete without the sight of children playing (Paul Piollet Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore).

Days of street wayangs. I thought this might have been a street in the Ellenborough Market area but it seems more likely to have been Chin Nam Street (parallel to Hock Lam Street) with a view towards Fort Canning Hill  (Paul Piollet Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore).

Pau steamers – wgich caught the eye of Mr. Piollet (Paul Piollet Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore).

A scene now hard to imagine on Sungei Rochor (Paul Piollet Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore).

I have long admired the building that houses The Great Madras, a boutique hotel on Madras Street. The edifice in its incarnations as a hotel has brought a touch of Miami to the shophouse lined streets of a busy corner of Serangoon. The opportunity to have a look beyond the building’s gorgeous Streamline-Moderne façade came this Architectural Heritage Season with tours organised by the URA. The hotel won an Architectural Heritage Award for the efforts made in the restoration of the building,

Deliciously decorated, the hotel’s common areas on the ground floor provide a great introduction to its well thought of interiors. The lobby and a restaurant and bar, which opens up to the outside is what first greets visitors. There is also a barber shop and a utility area at the building’s rear. A sliding privacy door hides the hostel-like accommodation on the same floor. Here, its private sleeping spaces carry the names of established travel influencers.

The reception area.

The hotel’s rooms are laid out across the building’s two upper floors. Corridors decorated with quirky neon signs and ventilated through the steel-framed glass windows of a forgotten era, provide correspondence to the rooms. It is along a corridor on the second floor that a pleasant surprise awaits. This takes the form of an especially delightful and photograph-able view of the hotel’s retrofitted swimming pool, framed by a circular opening in the pastel pink party wall that separates the pool from its sun deck.

A corridor on the upper levels.

The alterations made in the building’s interiors does make it hard to think of the building having been put to any other use other than the current, and quite certainly not as a public-housing block of flats it was built as in early 1940, There is of course that Tiong Bahru-esque appearance and quality that may give the fact away but the standalone nature of the block will mask the fact that it was the Singapore Improvement Trust or SIT that built it. The SIT – the predecessor to the HDB – besides having had the task of addressing the demand for public housing, also took on the role of town planner. The public housing projects that it embarked on tended to be built in clusters, such as in the case of Tiong Bahru.

The rear courtyard.

The swimming pool.

There is however a good reason for the Madras Street block’s isolation. A 1940 report made by the SIT holds the clue to this. It turns out that the block – erected to take in the area’s residents displaced by the demolition of older buildings – was meant to have been part of a larger improvement scheme that the SIT had planned for the area. The scheme was to have seen the demolition of a dozen “old and unsanitary” buildings in the months that would follow  to provide for a southeasterly extension of Campbell Lane past Madras Street. There was also to have been the metalling of the area’s roads and the construction of much-needed drains. The orientation and alignment of the 70 by 60 feet block does suggest that it was laid out with the extension of Campbell Lane in mind.

A view of the surroundings through steel framed windows.

The scheme’s overall aim was to provide accommodation in greater numbers, make an improvement in (transport) communication and the layout of of the very congested area. There was also a need to address the area’s poor sanitary conditions. It is quite evident from what we see around that the scheme did not go much further. Perhaps it may have been a lack of funds, as it was with many public schemes in those days. There was also the intervention of the war, which was already being fought in Europe by the time of the block was completed.

Another view of the hotel’s windows.

From the report, we also get a sense of the “attractive” building’s original layout. Three flats were found on each floor, hence the three addresses 28, 30 and 32, giving the building a total of nine flats. Each flat contained three rooms, one of which would have been a living room that opened to the balcony. A kitchen cum dining room was provided in each flat, as well as a bathroom and a toilet – “in accordance with Municipal Commissioners’ requirements”.

A spiral staircase in the rear courtyard.

The report also tells us of how much the flats, which were fully booked before the building’s completion, were rented out for: $23 per month for ground floor units and $26 per month for the units on the upper floors.

More on the restoration efforts that won the Great Madras Hotel the award: 28, 30 & 32 Madras Street Charming Revival.

Restored granolithic (Shanghai Plaster) finishing on the column bases.

More photographs:

The relative isolation of Loewen by Dempsey Hill within the former Tanglin Barracks is a clue to how its buildings might originally have been used, as a military hospital that was known as Tanglin Military Hospital. Established at the end of the 1800s in what were attap roofed barrack-like buildings, it served as the military’s main medical facility for its European contingent of troops on Singapore’s main island until Alexandra Military Hospital was opened in mid-1940.

No. 32 Company, RAMC at Tanglin Military Hospital c. 1930 (source: Wellcome Library via Wikipedia).

With British units involved in the Great War in Europe, Tanglin Military Hospital was manned by members of the Singapore Volunteer Field Ambulance Company during that period.

The hospital, which has certainly had a colourful past, was among the locations where the Singapore Mutiny of 1915 was played out. That incident saw a party of Sepoy soldiers raiding Tanglin Barracks. Among the locations the mutineers entered was the hospital. Patients were driven out and personnel shot at. The mutineers succeeded in scattering guards and liberating Germans prisoners. The hospital staff were reported to have “displayed great resource and bravery in attending to the wounded and in remaining within the vicinity of their post” during the incident.

Block 72 during days when the Ministry of Defence occupied Tanglin Barracks. Buildings within the cluster at Loewen was put to use by the SAF Medical Corps, HQ 9 Division and also the Music and Drama Company.

The opening of the new military hospital at Alexandra, saw the hospital’s role reduced to one used primarily for the care of soldiers afflicted with skin conditions and diseases of a sexual nature. A significant part of the hospital was in fact already dedicated to this even before the move. Infections of the nature were apparently quite common among the troops and as a main hospital, one of Tanglin’s two large ward buildings was already given to this use.

The former military hospital’s general ward.

It was in its days as a hospital for skin diseases and STDs that a young doctor, Dr William Frankland, was posted to it. Now 106 (and still working!), Dr Frankland has since acquired the reputation of being the “Grandfather of allergy” – for his pioneering work in the field. His remarkable life and accomplishments has been celebrated in many ways, including through the publication of his biography “From Hell Island To Hay Fever: The Life of Dr Bill Frankland” in October 2018. This biography would probably not have read very differently, or not have been written at all, if a toss of a coin not long after he had arrived in Singapore late in 1941 had not been in Dr Frankland’s favour.

The building where the hospital’s dermatology and venereal diseases wards were located.

The toss decided who would take on the seemingly more appealing role of treating patients with dermatological conditions and venereal disease and involved Dr Frankland and another newly arrived colleague with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), Captain R. L. Parkinson. A choice had been offered to both and it was either to have been this, or an Anaesthetist at Alexandra, which neither doctor fancied. Quite sadly for Parkinson that toss would seal his fate. He was killed on the 14th day of February 1942 during the Alexandra Hospital massacre, while administering anaesthesia to a patient on the operating table.

Another view of the buildings used by the military hospital at Loewen by Dempsey Hill.

The long career of Dr Frankland, who is now considered to be Britain’s oldest doctor, has been especially eventful. He is best known for the introduction of pollen counts in weather reports. He also has had the privilege of working under Sir Alexander Fleming and counted among his patients, a certain Saddam Hussein. More information on Dr Frankland can be found at the following links:

• The 106-year-old doctor – British Medical Association
• Grandfather of allergy: Dr William Frankland, the 106-year-old doctor – Imperial (College) Medicine Blog
• Japanese Soldier about to bayonet me – BBC HardTalk

This story was shared during the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets State Property visit to Dempsey Hill “Healing in the Garrison” in November 2018. The visit was supported by the Singapore Land Authority, Dempsey Hill and Saint George’s Church.

Those familiar with Moulmein Road in the days of Moulmein Green would remember the old Middleton Hospital and its iconic gatehouse. The landmark entrance-way stood for over 70 years before “progress” swallowed it up in the 1980s. Progress, which came in the form of road realignment and widening as part of the construction of the Central Expressway (CTE), saw also to the demise of Moulmein Green – one of at least a couple of roundabouts that were named “Green” (the other was Finlayson Green).  

The gatehouse with the black lion crest on it and a bit of Moulmein Green in the foreground.

The gatehouse provided both the hospital and the area with an identity that went beyond being a physical presence. It was the hospital’s black lion crest, which was on prominent display on the house, that the area’s name in the Hokkien vernacular came from.

The black lion – seen at the entrance of the former CDC.

The structure’s disappearance came at about the same time that Middleton, a name that the infectious diseases hospital was known as for 75 years, was also lost. Morphing in Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s Department of Communicable Diseases in 1985 and in 1992 the Communicable Diseases Centre (CDC) however, did not stop the former hospital from being in the news. It was a key component in the health plan drawn up in early days of the AIDS epidemic that saw a dedicated AIDS ward set up in April 1986. The CDC, which for a period of 3 years until 1995 functioned independently of Tan Tock Seng Hospital,  has also been at the forefront in the battle against several other high-profile disease outbreaks, such as the 2003 SARS epidemic.

Structures belonging to the former Middleton Hospital.

The absence of the gatehouse has also allowed a much clearer view of the centre’s expansive grounds and the quaint old structures seen on it. The sight is one that is increasing rare in Singapore and provides a glimpse of what could be thought of as an old-fashioned bit of Singapore that we should be thankful to the continued operation of the CDC for.

The old laundry.

It was an old-fashioned and a very different Singapore into which the former hospital came into being. With many in the already overcrowded municipality’s rapidly increasing urban population living in quite insanitary conditions, the urban centre was rife with highly contagious and often deadly diseases. Containing the spread of them, especially among the largely ignorant townsfolk, posed a huge challenge. 

The wards of the new Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Overworked medical staff from the hospital, which was also in Balestier Road before moving to their new site at Moulmein, provided care for the poor also attended to patients at the smallpox hospital and quarantine camp.

The former hospital’s origins can be traced back to a smallpox hospital that was established in the early 1870s at Balestier Plain (where the Singapore Singapore Indian Association and its sports fields are now located). This was expanded with a quarantine camp to isolate and confine “natives” afflicted with other infectious diseases on an adjacent site. Overworked doctors from nearby Tan Tock Seng attended also to patients at the camp.

An 1893 Map showing the Smallpox Hospital and also a Leper Asylum in Balestier Plain (National Archives of Singapore).

A 1905 Map showing the smallpox hospital and the infectious diseases ward (National Archives of Singapore).

By the turn of the last century, it became apparent that the hospital/quarantine camp “was unfit to meet the requirements of a large population liable to epidemics of smallpox and cholera and, to a less extent, of plague”. In 1905, plans were put forward by the Municipal Commission to erect an Infectious Disease Hospital at Moulmein Road. This would also provide wards for Europeans (not without objection), as well as “better class natives”. It wasn’t however until 1911 that work on a scaled-down version of the new hospital began in earnest.

Commissioned on 1 June 1913, the $270,000/- 172-bedded Infectious Diseases Hospital was described as being a “little more than the bones of what was proposed”. It was an improvement however to the “ramshackle institution in Balestier Road” that it replaced. Spread over an 11.5 hectare site, the facility featured three camps for the isolation and confinement of patients infected with cholera, plague and smallpox.

There were originally three clusters of pavilion wards – all widely spaced from each other – “camps” encircled by a fence.

The gentle rising slope that the hospital was placed on, provided for drainage. A fence, a triple-fence on three sides and an iron fence along Moulmein Road, encircled the hospital. This was as much to keep the general public out as it was to keep patients in. The gatehouse provided the hospital with a “pre-processing gateway” with lodgings for the gatekeeper / caretaker on the upper level.

The “pre-processing gateway” – with caretaker’s lodgings above.

Going past the gatehouse one would have seen the doctors and nurses quarters on the right, with those for other staff on the left. An administrative building was positioned right up the road. Three six-bedded wards were placed some distance away to its left with another three on its right. These were for observation and discharge.

What probably were the nurses quarters.

The camps, each enclosed by a fence, were found further up the road past the administrative building. The plague camp was arranged on the left, the cholera camp on the right, and the smallpox camp at the back at the top of the slope. The camps featured a ward for “natives”  with extensions to accommodate “better class natives”.  “Europeans” were housed separately.

The administrative building.

The old-fashioned concept of infection control through separation and ample (natural) ventilation that resulted in the layout of the hospital and in the design of its wards is very much in evidence in the CDC’s pavilion-style wards, even if they may have been modified. Air-conditioning, for both comfort and infection control, is one modern day addition. Building materials and fittings containing asbestos must also have been replaced. These would have been found in the Eternit ceiling panels that were fitted for insulation, damp and vermin control, and fire resistance.

Features for natural light and ventilation are found on the older ward buildings.

With the CDC moving to its new home last December where it has taken on a new identity as the National Centre for Infectious Diseases or NCID, time is being called on the former hospital. The site is marked for residential development under the URA Master Plan and it would probably not be long before all evidence of the hospital and its buildings is erased. 

In the Master Plan.

Another former ward building.

Many of the former CDC’s buildings do actually go back to its days as the Infectious Diseases Hospital of 1913, including the administrative building, a stand-alone mortuary building, and the laundry in its southeastern corner. The laundry, which was expanded postwar with the addition of a new building, was designed such that dhobis would not have had to handle the items to be laundered until they were properly disinfected and cleaned. There are also some of the original wards – Singapore’s last pavilion wards to remain in use and former quarters.  

The mortuary.

Possibly one of the original observation or discharge wards.

With the old hospital having passed into history, it also is important not to forget those associated with its past. Prof. Ernest Steven Monteiro is one who comes to mind whose pioneering in preventive medicine Singapore must be thankful for. Dr. Monteiro is credited with initiating what turned out to be a very successful mass vaccination campaign against polio in the the late 1950s.

The front of the mortuary.

Dr. Monteiro connection with the hospital was during the Japanese Occupation. As the Japanese appointed director of the then Densen Byoin, which was teeming with sick people with infectious diseases such as typhoid and ailments brought about through malnutrition, the young director faced many challenges. One especially serious one was the shortage of anti-diphtheria serum, which he overcame through improvisation. His son, Dr. Edmund Monteiro, was to make significant contributions to Middleton Hospital and the CDC during his service there from 1965 to 1993. The younger Dr. Monteiro’s  oversaw the hospital’s transition to the CDC and co-ordinated the CDC’s response to  the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

Ward 76, which was converted for use as a HIV/AIDS ward.

We should also remember the forgotten Dr. William Robert Colvin Middleton, after whom the hospital was named in 1920 upon his retirement. This was to recognise the many contributions he made as one of Singapore’s longest serving Municipal Health Officers to improving lives and the role he played in the setting the hospital at Moulmein Road up. A  short bio on Dr. Middleton can be found at the end of this post.

A visible part of the CDC today – former quarters.

The newer extension to the laundry.

Emergency wards set up for SARS.

An isolation room in the emergency wards.

A look inside one of the former wards.

A much more modern addition, a negative pressure ward.

(The forgotten) Dr. W. R. C. Middleton, Municipal Health Officer, 1894 to 1920

A painting of Dr. Middleton, one of three portraits painted by Anatole Shister for display in the Chief Committee Room of the new Municipal Building (later City Hall) in 1929 (National Collection as listed on roots.sg).

The son of a Church of Scotland Minister and a military chaplain in India, Dr. William Robert Colvin Middleton was born in Bombay in 1863. Having obtained his medical qualifications in 1888, he served as a resident physician in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary before heading to Singapore in 1890 to work for Dr. Charles Llewellyn Howard Tripp in the Maynard and Co. Dispensary.

Dr. Middleton applied for the position of Municipal Health Officer in late 1893 when its became vacant due to the resignation of Dr. Charles Eardley Dumbleton. Dr. Middleton was given the appointment of Acting Health Officer in January 1894 with a view to the full post, on the condition that he obtain a Diploma in Public Health; the Municipal Commission had then determined that should be a prerequisite for the position. Dr. Middleton left for Aberdeen at the end of March that year,  returning with the required Diploma in October, all at his own expense!

Dr. Middleton held the appointment of Municipal Health Office upon his return until his retirement late in 1920, except for a spell back home in during the Great War in 1916. He survived the torpedo attack on the ill-fated RMS Arabia, which sunk in the Mediterranean in November 1916, on his passage back to Singapore from this.

Besides the numerous contributions he made improving the state of sanitation in Singapore, as well as in other aspects of public health including in maternal care, Dr. Middleton also served as the Deputy President of the Municipal Commission in 1904. He held the rank of Major in the Singapore Volunteer Corps and was credited with setting a medical aid post up on the P & O wharf during Singapore Mutiny for the transfer of casualties to the military hospital on Pulau Blakang Mati.

He passed away at the age of 58, on 8 December 1921, in Bexhill in Sussex. He was survived by his wife, the former Mrs. Ethel Hunt, whom he married at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in April 1909.

Parting glances …

There will be three Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets guided visits to look forward to this March. Being held as part of Singapore Heritage Festival 2019, the visits will focus on sites used by former hospitals: View Road – former Rimau Offices / View Road Hospital (16 March), Kadayanallur Street – former St. Andrew’s Mission Hospital (23 March) and Halton Road – old Changi Hospital (30 Mar). Places are limited and registration would be necessary.

In addition to the visits, I will also be taking a walk “Down the Middle” in search of the markers that the various communities that have flavoured Middle Road over the years have left behind. The walk will be held at 4 pm on 16 Mar 2019. More information on this can be found at: https://www.heritagefestival.sg/programmes/down-the-middle.

At 5 Kadayanallur Street : a 1929 vintage Smith, Major and Stevens lift, .

Information on the Singapore Heritage Festival can be found at the festival’s site. Information related to the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets sites being visited can be found at these links:

• Former View Road Hospital
• Former St. Andrew’s Mission Hospital
• Old Changi Hospital

Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets is a collaboration with the Singapore Land Authority that allows members of the public to visit to sites and properties managed by the authority that are normally closed to the public.

News on the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of guided visits:

• The Straits Times 23 Jul 2017
• LAND Sep 2017
• TheSmartLocal 28 Nov 2017
• TimeOut SG 11 Apr 2018
• The Sunday Times 27 May 2018
• SG Magazine 5 July 2018
• Challenge 23 Aug 2018
• Business Times 21 Sep 2018

A last look at a 127 year old former “House on the Hill” a.k.a. “Tower House”, before it becomes part of a residential development known as “Haus on Handy”:

Perched on the brow of the hill we know as Mount Sophia is a last of a hilltop once devoted to the large and airy residences of the mid to late 19th century, a two-storey house known as “Tower House”. Used in more recent years as a playschool “House on the Hill”, the conservation house was included in a land sales exercise last year as part of a larger plot.

An early photo of Tower House (source: Memories, gems and sentiments : 100 years of Methodist Girls’ School).

Built in 1892 for the Singapore Land Company, the house was laid out – unusually for the houses of Singapore in the day – on an asymmetrical plan. It featured a carriage porch and a dining room on the ground level and living and sleeping spaces on the upper level. As with the houses of the day, ample openings and generously proportioned verandahs are provided for a maximum of light and ventilation.

More on the house, which I had an opportunity to visit and learn more about some 7 years back, can be found in this November 2011 post:  Windows to Heaven.

The former House on the Hill on its perch at the top of Mount Sophia.

A plaque commemorating the repurposing of the house as the Women’s Society of Christian Service Centre in Dec 1989.

Wrought-iron grilles.

What would have been the dining room.

Evidence of the house’s last occupants.

A doorway into the service area.

A door way to the verandah area surrounding the former dining room.

A view of the ground floor verandah.

Another view from the verandah.

The second level

The Drawing Room.

Views around the verandah.

The starirway to heaven (the tower)

Views from the Tower

Miscellaneous Views

Much has been told of Golden Bell (mansion). Built in 1910 as Tan Boo Liat’s stately hilltop residence at Pender Road, an air of romance and some mystery perhaps, surrounds the place. It has quite a proud and distinguished past and its guests included Chinese revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who spent a night there in 1911. Lavish parties were said to have been thrown at house in the brief period that Tan Boo Liat occupied it. In the little more than a century that has elapsed, neither the romance nor the mystery seems to have been lost, even with its use since 1985 by the Danish Seamen’s Church. Those curious enough to have stolen a glance at the grand residence on the way down from Mount Faber will also have little doubt of its majesty. 

Golden Bell today.

A chapter in the Golden Bell story that seems to be missed by most, is one that relates to the Methodist Mission, and its plans to establish an institution of higher learning in Singapore. The ambitious idea was long held by Anglo-Chinese School’s founder, Bishop William F. Oldham, when it was set in motion through the arrival of Rev. James Stewart Nagle in 1914. Rev. Nagle, picked as the principal of the 3-decade old ACS so that he could also put plans for the college in place, set to work immediately. A College Council was established. Its members counted prominent figures such as Tan Kah Kee, Lee Choon Guan, and Tan Cheng Lock, all of whom made generous pledges and contributions.

Anglo-Chinese College Council, 1918. Seated left to right: Tan Kah Kee; William Thorpe Cherry Junior; Lee Choon Guan; Chan Kang Swi; and Rev. J.S. Nagle. Standing: 3rd from left – Reverend P.L. Peach (ACS Principal, 1922-1924); 4th from left – Reverend Boughman; and extreme right – Tan Cheng Lock.

By late 1917, a reported 26½ acres (10.7 hectares) of land on a “hilltop location in Telok Blangah” had been secured, including Golden Bell. Contrary to the popularly held view that it remained in Tan Boo Liat’s hands unil his death in 1934, the mansion, which had already been vacated by late 1914, had been put up for sale in 1916.

Extract from a 1922 Thomas Cook Guide to Singapore, published by the Methodist Publishing House, that lists the “red brick mansion known as ‘Golden Bell'” as belonging to thr Methodist Mission and “intended as an educational site”.

It was also in 1917 that the Mission sent a deputation to Governor Sir Arthur Young – to “seek Government sanction” for the college. Young (as did his successor in 1919, Sir Laurence Guillemard) had misgivings about the plan. It was seen as a threat to British prestige as the Mission was very much an America one. A letter, sent by the Colonial Secretary F. S. James some weeks after the 29 August meeting, stated that while the Government did not object to the setting up of the college, it could neither support the project nor sanction the granting of degrees by it.

Inside Golden Bell’s turret – originally a Billiard Room.

Rev. Nagle and the Council pressed ahead in spite of the apparent objections. In 1918, a Propectus of the Anglo-Chinese College was issued. The prospectus laid out the aims of the intended college, which was to provide “equal facilities with all other students for qualifying of any public degrees that may be instituted by the Government …” and prepare students for degree examinations that “might be instituted by the Straits Settelments Government, or for degree examinations of any recognised British University”. This was clearly intended to address the concerns that the Government had.

Golden Bell’s dining room – now a place of worship.

While the Council may have met with some success in its efforts to raise funds, which by 1920 had grown to a tidy sum of $400,000, it wasn’t as successful in changing the minds of those that mattered. The continued reluctance on the part of the Government to lend its support – who in 1918 embarked on its own plans for a publicly run college – and the unscheduled departure of Rev. Nagle in 1922, would lead to the plan’s demise. With that, funds raised for the college were channelled instead towards the mission’s other educational endeavours. This was the case with Tan Kah Kee’s subscription of $30,000 (Straits Settlements Dollars), which was transferred with his approval to the ACS’s physics and chemistry funds.

The Entrance Hall.

The house, and the land that had been acquired for the college, remained in the possesion of the Methodist Mission into the 1930s – despite attempts to have that sold once the plan had fallen through. While the Methodist Mission may have failed, its efforts prompted the Government to move on their own plans up for an insitution of higher learning. The outcome of the Government’s plans was Raffles College, the forerunner of the University of Malaya and what is today the National University of Singapore, which was set up after some delay in 1928.

More on the intended Anglo-Chinese College can be found at this links:

• In days of yore (Pt. 4) – Earnest Lau
• An Abortive Plan for an Anglo Chinese College in Singapore – Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 45, no. 2 (222), 1972, pp. 97–109.

Addendum 8 May 2019

The use of Golden Bell as the “Singapore Private Hospital” – an untold mini-Chapter in the Golden Bell story:

It has come to my attention (via Khoo Ee Hoon) that Golden Bell was also used briefly as the “Singapore Private Hospital”, which opened in August 1924. Newspaper reports mention its opening above “Plantation Bahru” on a site “200 feet up on hilly ground west of Mount Faber”, “overlooking Keppel Golf Course” and with accommodation for 14 patients. It also had an “operating theatre with modern surgical theatre and an X-Ray plant for examination and treatment” and had “fully trained English Sisters in charge of nursing”.

The hospital seems to have closed some time the following year. Advertisements for an auction sale of hospital equipment at the property appear in November 1925. “To Let” advertisements for the property subsequent to this – at least up to 1934, list addresses that are associated with the Methodist Mission.

Golden Bell and Tan Boo Liat

Designed by a “local” architect, Wee Teck Moh – whose signature appears on the plans of many shophouses built at the end of the 1800s, the Edwardian-style mansion was given the “blood and bandages” fairfaced brick and plaster face appearance that seemed popular at the time. Local examples of buildings erected during the period with a similar appearance are the Central Fire Station, the former MPH Building and the rectory of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd. The house also exhibits several “local” features such as the Buddhist stupa shaped roof that adorns a turret. The house is thought to have been named after Tan Boo Liat’s grandfather, Tan Kim Ching – the son of Tan Tock Seng (“Kim Ching” translates into “Golden Bell” in Hokkien).

Plans for Golden Bell approved in 1909 (National Archives of Singapore).

Tan Boo Liat, who took over his grandfather’s rice milling business interests in Siam and was a racehorse owner with a reputation for having lived lavishely, hosted parties at Golden Bell. The mansion also saw some illustrious guests, playing host to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, when he made a short visit to Singapore in December 1911.

Plans for Golden Bell approved in 1909 (National Archives of Singapore).

Tan Boo Liat seems to have used the mansion up to about 1913-14, after which he was constantly on the move. Besides being away in Bangkok for long periods in the 1920s, and in Shanghai for two years until his death there in 1934, he also moved quite a fair bit around Singapore. His residential addresses here included 60 Emerald Hill Road, and 8 Simons Road (Angullia Park today). It was at his Simons Road residence and not at Golden Bell as stated in a 2011 Zaobao article, that Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath of Siam, brother of King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) and heir apparent to the Siamese throne, passed away during a stopover in Singapore on 13 June 1920 at the age of 37.

A group photograph at Golden Bell with Lim Nee Soon and Tan Chor Lam among the faces in the crowd (National Archives of Singapore).

Golden Bell would eventully fall into the hands of the Port of Singapore Authority, who used it until 1985 and from whom Danish Seamen’s Church initially leased it from. The State Property, still used by the church, has since been transferred to the Singapore Land Authority.

A wooden grille with a golden bell motif on it in the mansion,

Like ghosts, a familiar pair of figures from Kallang’s past have made a reappearance. The pair, fibreglass replicas of the Merdeka Bridge Monument lions, were unveiled this afternoon at Stadium Roar as part of the launch of The Kallang Story, a Sports and Heritage Trail that uncovers many other aspects of the area’s rich and colourful history through 3 suggested walking routes featuring 18 heritage markers.

The unveiling of the replica lions at Stadium Roar at the National Stadium.

The lions, commissioned by the Public Works Department during the construction of the bridge, were designed based on sketches by Mr. L. W. Carpenter of its Architect’s Branch. The full design was completed by Signor Raoul Bigazzi (not by Cav. Rodolfo Nolli as has been widely reported), who had them made in Manila at a cost of $14,200.

The bridge, built at a cost of $8M, was touted as “the longest and largest of its type in South East Asia”. Its construction, along with that of Nicoll Highway was possible by the move of the civil airport from Kallang to Paya Lebar in 1955. The proposal to name the bridge “Merdeka” or “Independence” was made in June 1956 by the then Minister of Works and Communications Mr Francis Thomas under the Lim Yew Hock administration, “to express the confidence and aspirations of the people”. This came after the first round of Merdeka talks for full self-government stalled and Singapore first Chief Minister, David Marshall, resigned. Some 60,000 people crossed the bridge at its opening on 17 August 1956 – at which Mr Lim Yew Hock referred to it as a “Symbol of Our Path to Freedom”.

The monument, was placed at each end of the bridge with a lion at its base. The monument and the lions were removed during the widening and conversion of the Nicoll Highway from a dual to a treble carriageway in 1966. The lions were initially placed at Kallang Park and are now display out of sight to most of us at SAFTI Military Institute.

Will the (Kallang) roar now return?

A Wushu display during the unveiling of the replica lions.

A building that has long marked the corner of Short Street and Selegie Road, the former “Tiger Balm Building”¹, is no more. Topped once by a tiger as a mark of its association with the Haw Par Brothers famous cure-all ointment, the uniquely shaped building was demolished quite recently to allow a luxury car “vending machine” to take its place.

Going … going … gone … 2016, 2018, 2019.

Laid on an isosceles-trapezoid plan, the edifice came up in the 1930s as Eng Aun Tong’s “The Tiger Medical Hall”. Well photographed even in its early days, a rather iconic image captured of it by the legendary Carl Mydans in 1941 made its way into LIFE Magazine’s 21 July edition of that year in a feature on Singapore under the title “Singapore is a Modern City of Self-Made Millionaires”. Captioned “Singapore’s most picturesque millionaire sells his patent medicine under a clock tower”, the “picturesque millionaire” in question, Mr. Aw Boon Haw, was the man largely responsible for Tiger Balm’s and Haw Par Brothers’ success. The “picturesque” side of him was the tiger-striped car he drove, questionable (or “illicit” as alleged by LIFE) enterprises, and most certainly Tiger Balm Garden – a.k.a. Haw Par Villa.

A photograph in LIFE Magazine’s 21 Jul 1941 edition, captioned “Singapore’s most picturesque millionaire sells his patent medicine under a clock tower” [Carl Mydans, © Time Inc. for which Personal and Non-Commercial Use is permitted]

Known also as “Tiger Balm Clock-Tower Building” in its early days, the tower – by the time the late 1960s had arrived – was made much less distinct through the addition of a fourth floor to what the building’s original three-levels. This came well after the building had already been repurposed in 1955 as Chung Khiaw Bank’s second Singapore branch. Chung Khiaw Bank, another of Aw Boon Haw’s ventures, was a “small man’s bank” that Boon Haw established to allow those in the lower income groups to gain access to financing.

Another one from the 1930s. From the Collectors Gallery, Mad on Collections (https://madoncollections.com/).

Occupants of the building’s two upper floor “flats” in its early days as the Tiger Medical Hall, included Narayanswamy & Sons – the sole distributor of Mysore Sandal(wood) Soap, and, the Butterfly Permanent Wave (salon). The only plans I have been able to locate thus far are for the addition of cubicles on the building’s second floor in 1937, drawn up and submitted by a Chan Yee Lim² on behalf of Haw Par Brothers’ Ltd.  Once of Booty and Edwards and later of J. B. Westerhout, Chan – who came over who came over from Hong Kong in 1888 and qualified as an architect in 1915 – was already on his own by the time. His work included Catholic High School at 222 Queen Street, and the Carmelite Convent at Bukit Teresa. While it may be possible that Chan had also been the building’s architect, the plans do not conclusively say that he was.

The building in 2010.

The building in 2014.

On the subject of plans, it seems interesting that a “Tiger Theatre” was to have been built on the site adjacent to the Tiger Balm Building around the same period, separated by a backlane. Designed by Frank W. Brewer for Peter Chong, the idea for the 856-seat cinema was rejected by the Municipal Commissioners on grounds that there was no provision for parking. Despite its name, the cinema had no apparent association to Tiger Balm.

The building seen in a late 1945 Imperial War Museums photograph of a victory procession of Indian Muslims following the end of the war © IWM (SE 5096).

The tiger that topped the building – a familiar sight through much of my childhood – disappeared some time in the late 1970s when United Overseas Bank (UOB) raised a symbol of their own.  UOB had by that time, acquired a majority interest in the bank. Chung Khiaw Bank would however retained its name through much of the period, when became a fully owned subsidiary in 1988, and until it was fully absorbed by UOB in 1999.

The building topped by the UOB symbol in 1980 (NAS).

Among the businesses that had been housed in the building after the branch closed, were the offices and a small food court of Banquet Holdings Pte. Ltd. (the operator of halal food courts that has since gone under). A string of food and beverage outlets made brief appearances in more recent time. These included the Tea Culture Academy and Rayz Bistro. The building had in fact been threatened with demolition as far back as 2009. A 12 storey entertainment hub, named “10 Square”, was then proposed. Autobahn Motors, who had been behind this earlier proposal, now aims to put up the 20-deck “vending maching” – also named Ten Square. This looks to be along the lines of the one Autobahn already operates in Jalan Kilang with the exception of its shape and capacity. This, based on information on the site, should be completed by early next year.

^Notes:
1 See also : When did the tiger at the corner of Selegie Road and Short Street go missing?

² What may also be interesting about Chan Yee Lim, a prominent member of the congregation of the Church of Sacred Heart in Tank Road was that one of his eight children, Monsignor Francis Chan, was the Roman Catholic Diocese of Penang’s first Bishop from 1955 until his death in 1967. Monsignor Chan was succeeded as Bishop of Penang by Monsignor Gregory Yong, who we know as the Archbishop of Singapore from 1977 to 2000.

The 2019 edition of Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets, a series of State Property Visits that has been organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) starts this June with a revisit to No. 5 Kadayanallur Street.

Two(2) sessions are being held on 22 June 2019 (a Saturday), each lasting 45 minutes.

Each session is limited to 25 participants.

Participants must be of ages 18 and above.

Registration is necessary. Do note that registration for both sessions closed at 6.50 pm on 10 June 2019. To be placed on the waiting list, kindly fill the form at this link (please click).

Updates (info only) on the 2019 series will also be provided at this link and on The Long and Winding Road on Facebook.

More information:

• The hospital at Mount Erskine and what may now be Singapore’s oldest lift
• Photos (on Flickr)
• Story of a lift nearing 90 (Sunday Times, 27 May 2018)

Update : Registration has closed as of 7.06 pm 1 July 2019. As pre-registration is required, no walk-ins will be permitted. 

More on the series: Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets

The disused buildings of the former Changi Hospital have, since the hospital’s colsure in 1997, been the subject of persistent rumours that stem from a misunderstanding of the buildings’ wartime history.

The hospital, which began its life as RAF Hospital, Changi, was among the most highly regarded in the RAF medical service. It boasted of some of the best facilities, and the environment it provided was ideally suited to rest and recuperation. Occupying buildings of the Changi garrison that were perhaps the least troubled by the occurences in Changi from Feb 1942 and Aug 1945, it was only in 1947 that the hospital was set up. Two Royal Engineers’ Kitchener Barracks buildings built in the 1930s were turned into the hospital to serve RAF Changi after the air station was established (in 1946). A third block, which became the main ward block, was added in the early 1960s.

Suported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), the visit provides an opportunity to learn more about the former hopsital and its misunderstood past. It will also offer participants a rare opportunity to take a guided walk through parts of the property.

When 
13 July 2019

How to register

Do note that spaces are limited. As this is a repeat visit, kindly register only if you have not previously participated.

Participants must be of ages 18 and above.

A unique registration is required for each participant – duplicate registrations in the same name will count as one.

Registration shall be made using the form at this link (closed as of 7.06 pm 1 July 2019).

A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration one week prior to the visit with admin instructions to all successful registrants. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.

More on the series, which is being organised in collaboration with the Singapore Land Authority (SLA): Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets.

No. 10 View Road is perhaps best known as the former View Road Hospital, a branch of Woodbridge Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health) until the early 2000s. The hospital housed and treated patients undergoing rehabilitation with many finding employment in the area.

The complex, which sits on a hill close to Woodlands Waterfront, does have a much longer history. Completed in late 1941 in the western side of the Admiralty’s huge naval base, its grounds also contains a unique above-ground bomb-proof office. The building also provided accommodation for the Naval Base Police Force’s Asian policemen and their families from the late 1950s to 1972, during which time the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police – a Sikh temple that has since merged with the Gurdwara Sahib Yishun – was found on its grounds. The building has also been re-purposed in recent times as as a foreign workers dormitory.

The visit, which is supported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), provides participants with the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk through parts of the property.

Further information on the series, which is being organised in with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), can be found at this link: Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets.

The move made by Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s former Communicable Disease Centre or CDC to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) in December 2018 and its handover to SLA, provides an opportunity to pay the sprawling grounds that it occupied a visit.

Formerly the Infectious Diseases Hospital and Middleton Hospital, the centre played a key role in the containment of and the fight against highly contagious diseases. Many of the site’s original buildings from 1913, laid out in the distinct manner of the pavilion style hospital wards of old, can still be found spread across its expansive 9.7 ha. site.

The visit, which provides the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk, is supported by SLA.

Update:

Registration is now closed as the event is over-subscribed.

Note:

This visit is a repeat of the one held on 3 Aug 2019 and as such, opened only to those who were not provided with a place for the earlier visit.

Places would be allocated only to the first 25 eligible registrants. Unsuccessful registrants would be placed on the waiting list.

Successful registrants will be notified by email by 9 Aug 2019.

Further information on the series, which is being organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), can be found at this link: Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets.

Background to the former CDC and the visit

The move of Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s former Communicable Disease Centre to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) in December 2018 and its handover to SLA, provides an opportunity to pay the sprawling grounds that it occupied a visit.

Formerly the Infectious Diseases Hospital and Middleton Hospital, the centre played a key role in the containment of highly contagious diseases. Many of the site’s original buildings from 1913, laid out in the distinct manner of the pavilion=style hospital wards, of old, can still be across its expansive 9.7 ha. site.

The visit, which provides the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk, is supported by SLA.

It seems that three buildings of the former Singapore Chinese Girls’ School (SCGS) campus at 37 Emerald Hill Road is to be conserved. The campus, used in the interim by Chatsworth International School, features two buildings from the early 20th century as well as the additions of more recent times.

The Song Ong Siang Block, the newest of the buildings that the URA proposes to conserve.

A view over Emerald Hill Road, much of which was gazetted as a conservation area in 1989. The former SCGS was not then included in the conservation area.

The three buildings, assessed to be of high historical and architectural significance, are the Main Block built in 1925, the Principal’s House built in 1930, as well as the Song Ong Siang Block. Built in 1956 and fronting Emerald Hill Road, the Song Ong Siang Block is named after one of the school’s founders, and has served as the face of the school for many. The older buildings were designed by architecture firm Messrs. S. Y. Wong and Co. – the architects for the New World – on English and American principles”.

Once an area in which a jungle of trees that yielded a spice that was worth more than its weight in gold, the area is now dominated by a concrete jungle put to use in mining the gold of the new age.

Founded in 1899, the school occupied a site at the corner of Hill and Coleman Streets (now occupied by the extension to the Central Fire Station) prior to moving to Emerald Hill late in 1925. It is regarded as a pioneer in the provision of education to Straits-born Chinese girls. The Emerald Hill site, previously owned by Dr. Lim Boon Keng, was bought for a sum of 50,000 Straits Dollars in 1924 by the Straits Settlements Government for the school. The school was granted a 99-year lease for the site in exchange for the its Hill Street premises, and occupied the site until it moved to Dunearn Road in 1994.

The 1930’s built Principal’s quarters.

The school, which was renamed Emerald Hill Girls’ School in the early part of the Japanese Occupation, was said to have also been used as a comfort station. This has not been verified, although it is known that several other buildings in the area were put to such use. The Sakura Club, was one known comfort station at Emerald Hill Road. Another, the Nanmei-Soo, which was identified as a comfort station in Goh Sin Tub’s “The Nan-Mei-Su of Emerald Hill, was reportedly more of a ryotei  – a restaurant. The Nanmei-Soo reportedly employed hostesses to provide services beyond serving food and drink. This operated out of the ex-Hollandse Club at 30 Cairnhill Road.

The front view of the Main Block, built in 1925.

The decision to conserve the three buildings, comes on the back of a community effort driven by former students of SCGS, “Keep 37 Emerald Hill“. The effort saw various proposals put forward for the reuse of the buildings in a manner that the history of the site is not lost.

The main block as seen from the back.

Another view of the front of the Main Block.

The Song Ong Siang Block.

The Main Block as seen from the Song Ong Siang Block. The Lee Kong Chian Block, an addition in the 1970s seen on the right of the Main Block is not one of the three being proposed for conservation.

Stairway in – if I remember correctly – the Song Ong Siang Block.

Another view towards the Lee Kong Chian Block.

The Principal’s Quarters.

A look back at Eunosville, seen in its final days about a year ago …

The cranes and earth movers taking over Eunosville, a former HUDC estate built in the 1980s.

The almost empty estate seen in August last year.

Built by the Housing and Urban Development Company (HUDC) as it was in a period of transition in the mid-1980s, Eunosville differed from the HUDC developed estates that were built before it. Laid out – quite intentionally as part of a larger HDB development, the estate took on an appearance that made it a lot less exclusive as compared to the HUDC estates of the decade that preceded it.

Eunosville.

Among the last HUDC estates to be erected, it was privatised in 2011 with a view to a collective (or en-bloc) sale. The sale eventually went through in June 2017 for a price of S$765.78 million. The estate was vacated in August 2018 and has since been demolished for the Parc Esta condo development that is expected to be completed in 3 years time.

The divide. An amenity shared prior to its privatisation with the HDB side of the estate, split right down the middle.

The HUDC Scheme

The HUDC scheme was initiated in 1974. Its aims were to offer publicly developed housing to what may have been thought of as a sandwich class of middle-income wage earners who were not eligible for public housing and found private property out of reach. Among the first estates built were Farrer Court in 1976, Laguna Park, the first phase of Braddell View (1977) and Lakeview – all in 1977.

A shift in thinking, which saw a move to locate HUDC developments in areas of public housing rather than in private estates in the mid-1980s, saw estates such Eunosville being built before the HUDC programme was stopped altogether in 1987. The mid-1990s brought about the privatisation programme, which also saw all but one of the former HUDC estates go en-bloc. The last, Braddell View, relaunch a bid to go en-bloc in August this year.

Eunosville making its exit.

Discarding Eunosville – and seemingly, just about everything else …

Final Days

Set in a 50-hectare area that once contained Han Wai Toon’s Silly Fun Garden – or “The Garden of Foolish Indulgences” as coined by Dr. Lai Chee Kien in an essay published in Global History, NParks’ latest nature park – Thomson Nature Park is now opened. Complete with ruins of the Hainanese village of which Mr. Han’s “garden” was an extension of, guests at the park’s opening also included many of its former residents.

The residents included a racing legend Mr. Looi. The Looi’s ran Looi Motors, a motorcycle shop that was located at the current road entrance to the park, along with Thai Handicraft and the family of Mr. Han Wai Toon. More on the Hainanese village, the area’s rambutan orchards and the Silly Fun Garden (where a stash of valuable works of Chinese painter Xu Beihong including “Put Down Your Whip”, which fetched a record price for a Chinese art work of US$9.2 million in 2007 and “Silly Old Man Moves a Mountain“ – sold for US$4.12 million in 2006), can be found at :

• Tigers, elephants, rambutans and Xu Beihong in a garden of foolish indulgences.

With the granddaughter of Han Wai Toon, Rose, who has authored soon-to-be-launched book on Han Wai Toon’s orchard.

Mr Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development and Second Minister for National Development, with a motorcycle racing legend Mr. Looi, whose family ran Looi Motors, a motorcycle shop and a Thai Handicraft shop close to where the entrance to the park now is.

Bricks salvaged from the remnants of the village, used to cover potholes in the existing road. NParks did as little intervention as possible and repaired the village roads, originally built by the villagers, for use as trail paths.

A blue-rumped parrot seen in the park. The park is rich in fauna and is a key conservation site for the critically endangered Raffles’ Banded Langur.

Entrance to the home of the Hans – the family behind Hans Cake Shop.

Change often seems the only constant in Singapore. Its relentless pace has altered its face, so much so that many in my generation feel that home is foreign place. Nothing seems sacred, places that we have grown accustomed to and build ties with can disappear in the blink in an eye.

Vanishing scenes at Tanjong Pagar.

One change Singapore is in the midst of, the redevelopment of the Greater Southern Waterfront. This, while positive in the longer term, has the impact of removing places that are not only familiar, but are also markers of significance to Singapore’s past. The port, which the city has long been associated with, and the reason for uch of the development along the southern shores, is being moved in two stages to the far west. The closure of Tanjong Pagar Terminal, the cradle of Singapore’s shipping container revolution, has already been effected. Cleared of most of its container handling paraphernalia, the terminal seems to have been put to use for handling Ro-Ro cargo.

The container terminal has been stripped of it container handling paraphernalia and is being temporarily put to use as Ro-Ro cargo reception facility.

Tanjong Pagar – a promontory on which the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, formed in 1864, would establish wharfs and graving docks. The company initially constructed a wharf of 229 metres in length in 1866, capable of berthing 4 ships of “ordinary size”, a graving dock, Victoria Dock would also be built in 1868. The opening of the Suez Canal late in 1869, brought with it increased steamship traffic and more wharfage was added. Albert Dock was also built in 1879.

A G. R. Lambert print of Victoria Dock in the 1890s. A ship in Albert Dock can also be seen in the background.

By 1885, the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company would acquire the Borneo Company. This gave the company access to 2 kilometres of wharves. The 1899 acquisition of the (older) New Harbour Dock Company at New (now Keppel) Harbour, formerly the Patent Slip and Dock Company, which built No. 1 and No. 2 Docks at New Harbour, made it a monopoly. In 1905, the company was expropriated and the Tanjong Pagar Dock Board, the predecessor to the Singapore Harbour Board and PSA, took over.

Borneo Wharf, which Tanjong Pagar Dock Company acquired from the Borneo Company in 1885. The extended Tanjong Pagar promontory can be seen in the background.

Keppel Shipyard would assumed control of the PSA repair facilities, when the former was formed in 1968. Centred at Keppel Harbour, it continued using the historic Victoria and Albert docks until they were filled in during the 1983 PSA expansion of  Tanjong Pagar Container Terminal during. Keppel Island (the near shore Pulau Hantu) came into Keppel Shipyard’s hands in exchange.

The container terminal goes back to 1972. Its first berths, at Tanjong Pagar’s East Lagoon, came into use on 23 June 1972, when the M.V. Nihon – the first container vessel to call here came alongside. This was an especially significant event, which launched the Port of Singapore’s journey into a mode of cargo transport that now dominates sea trade.

Now that Tanjong Pagar has been emptied of the containers, its container cranes and the container ships that have become synonymous with the name, the area hasn’t looked the same. The container terminal at Keppel are also being cleared, with Brani to follow. The container terminals built at great expense at Pasir Panjang, now operational, will also eventually be cleared. A huge southern extension created out of the sea southwards from Singapore’s western reaches, the Tuas South reclamation, will house the Tuas Mega Port. This will gradually be put into service from 2021, and by 2040 will be where port operations will be concentrated. The extension will also be the future home of the ship-repair and ship-building industry.

Parting glances:

Juxtapositions (2014).

A mega-container vessel, the APL Mexico City coming into port (2014) – the increased sizes of container vessels require larger and deeper berths, prompting the need to develop newer terminals.

Another view of a Tanjong Pagar still in operation (2014)

More views of the since deported port:

In 2012.

In 2012.

Keppel Terminal in 2018.

Keppel Terminal in 2018.

Keppel Terminal in 2018.

The old Woodlands Town Centre, with its proximity to the checkpoint and the causeway, could have been thought of as a border post.

It certainly felt like it, with scores of folks crossing the causeway from Johor Bahru – many on foot – thronging the busy bus terminal and the shops in the old centre.  Completed in 1980/81, the centre belonged to the generation of Housing and Development Board (HDB) designs that followed on the second generation Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and Clementi New Town projects.

A unique feature the town centre was given was a bazaar, which house 88 shops resettled from the length of Woodlands Road. The town centre’s air-conditioned shopping complex could also be thought of as a pioneering attempt by the HDB to venture into shopping complex development.

Vacated in 2017, its proximity to the causeway was probably a contribution to its demise – part the the site which the now demolished centre occupies will be used to build an extension to the especially busy Woodlands Checkpoint.

A plan of Woodlands Town Centre (source: HDB).

Photographs:

The old bus terminal.

Woodlands Cinema.

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