Singapore was caught up in Taylor Swift fever with the American pop sensation in town for a six-concert Singapore leg of her sixth tour. There was also much excitement over Swift’s Singapore connection with the revelation that her grandmother, soprano Majorie Finlay, “spent a lot of time in Singapore”, and that her mother Andrea, “grew up here”. Screen grabs from Swift’s music video “majorie”, a song Swift wrote in tribute to her grandmother, showing glimpses of her grandmother’s Singapore residence were widely circulated, leading to much speculation as to where the house was and if it was still standing. Without much to go on except for the screen grabs, it would have been looking for a needle in a haystack.
A house with a similar design to the house that the Finlays occupied (this is not the house but has the same typology, and has a plan that is a mirror image of the house that the Finlays lived in).
Identifying the house, however, proved to be less difficult, thanks to childhood friend’s and Singapore American School schoolmates of Andrea Finlay, including Julia Nickson (of Rambo: First Blood Part II fame) and Nancy MacIntyre Hollinshead, who runs “Singapore Childhood Remembered” on Facebook. They were able to provide leads, as well as confirm how the how looked like.
The leads included the house’s general location “off Whitley Road”, descriptions of the terrain walking up to the house from Whitley Road, as well as a photograph of Andrea with friends taken outside the house that provided vital visual cues. Unfortunately, all that can be said for reasons of privacy (of the current occupants), is that the house is part of Mount Pleasant government housing estate. It is also in a cluster of houses of the same design, with several distinctive features that match the images in the screen grabs and photograph mentioned. A positive identification of the house was made on Wednesday (6 Mar 2024).
The government housing estate laid out with Mount Pleasant Road as a spine with several branch roads running off it, contains large residences that were built for senior government officers and their families in the 1930s. They accommodated the likes of the Director of Public Works and Director of Civil Aviation, Master Attendant, as well as members of the judiciary. Some of these houses were let out to non-government residents from the late 1950s.
The residences, which have been referred to as colonial bungalows or “black and white” houses, are of various designs and while given a white finish coat with black details, and perhaps have some features typical of black and white houses, many are not technically not black and white. Common features of these houses are designs to maximise natural ventilation such as generously sized openings, verandahs, pitched roofs with Marseille tiles and use of timber floorboards. The houses were also laid out on elevated grounds and given expansive gardens and today are surrounded by lush greenery.
Mount Pleasant and the Battle for Singapore:
Mount Pleasant Road, was where on of the last battle lines was drawn before the guns fell silent on 15 February 1942. Based on the work of battlefield archeologist Jon Cooper, we know that some of the houses along the road witnessed some very fierce battles on the night of the 14th and morning of the 15th of February. More information can be obtained on this in Jon Cooper’s Tigers in the Park.
The Pier, which was last the home of lawyer and sportsman Howard Cashin and his wife Lily in 2009, has been reborn.
Sensitively rebuilt with salvageable elements such as roof and floor tiles, bricks, timber fretwork and window frames, and an iron grille gate of the older house incorporated, Cashin House — as it is now known as, is a great joy to behold. Looking resplendent, the rebuilt house was unveiled by Minister for National Development, Mr Desmond Lee on 25 November during the 30th Anniversary celebrations of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and can now be visited through NParks through sign-ups for specially curated programmes and activities (it is otherwise closed to the public).
Cashin House reborn
Built originally in 1906 as a pier to transport rubber from Howard’s father Alexander Cashin’s Sungei Buloh Rubber Plantation, accommodation was added to it in the 1920s. The pier would become a seaside escape and on the evidence of aerial photographs, featured a bathing pagar at one point in time.
Contrasts and contradictions: a view from the mangrove lined NW coast of Singapore across the Selat Tebrau to the developed southern coast of Johor.
A landing site for during the Imperial Japanese Army’s invasion of Singapore on the night of 8 and early morning of 9 February 1942, the grounds of the house was a place of interest for both IJA war veterans and surviving Australian defenders who were known to have dropped by when the house was expanded and turned into a home for Howard Cashin and his then wife Gillian in the early 1960s. It was also during this time that the house was visited a number of times by the late Sultan Ismail of Johor (grandfather of the reigning Sultan).
The Pier remained in the hands of Howard Cashin until just after his death in 2009. In 2013 it was announced that the house was to be a gateway to and expanded Sungei Buloh Nature Park. In 2020, NParks announced the expanded section would be known as Lim Chu Kang Nature Park within a greater Sungei Buloh Nature Park Network that would include the Kranji Marshes and also extend eastwards to include the Kranji Mangroves and the Mandai Mangroves.
The house brings one close to nature.
The house on the pier is one of two sea pavilions left in Singapore. It was also rebuilt to provide for its safe and long term use. In a setting that is unlike anywhere else in Singapore, the house is not just a marker of history, but also of a world and a way of life that has long been forgotten. More on the house and its history can be found in the Instagram reel below and in these posts:
With Minister Desmond Lee, NParks CEO and Director of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, senior officers of URA, and Sungei Buloh volunteer Adriane Lee at the unveiling of Cashin House on 25 Nov 2023 (Photo: Minister Desmond Lee’s Facebook post)
Much has been made about the “mysterious” solitary Japanese tomb sitting on the southern slopes of Mount Faber. The tomb, which could be thought of as a memorial to a painful time in Singapore’s history, contains the remains of a member of staff of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI) Kobe shipyard, a naval architect by the name of Komoto Ekasa (or Omoto Egasa). Komoto was among an group of 94 MHI staff who had been sent from Kobe to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in January 1942 in anticipation of the Fall of Singapore. Arriving in Singapore on 2 March 1942, the MHI employees’ immediate task had been to revive the damaged Singapore Harbour Board (SHB) repair facilities at Keppel Harbour to the point that it could be put in operation to support the war effort.
The solitary tomb on the slopes of Mount Faber.
Enlisting the help of former executives and workers of SHB, MHI’s team was able to rapidly restore three of SHB’s graving docks at Keppel Harbour in a matter of weeks. By the third week of March, emergency repairs could be carried on the Imperial Japanese Navy oiler Tsurumi, which had been hit by a Dutch torpedo in the waters of the East Indies early that same month. By June, much of the repair facilities had been fully restored and was subsequently run as the No. 1 yard of MHI’s Syonan Shipyard (Syonan Shipyard’s No. 2 Yard was at Tanjong Rhu). Unfortunately for the hardworking Komoto, who had been appointed as the shipyard’s manager, he fell ill and passed on the 18th day of July 1942.
Singapore Harbour Board Repair Facilities included graving docks at Keppel Harbour and Tanjong Pagar.
Komoto’s efforts would however not be in vain. While MHI’s Syonan Shipyard may have been unable to support the Japanese shipbuilding efforts due to material and machinery shortages as was intended, it proved to be a great asset to the Japanese fleet as a repair yard. Some 2364 ships were repaired by the shipyard from March 1942 to August 1945 even if only a handful of ships were built. The yard was also able to provide employment to local workers, with the number of local employees exceeding 3000 at the peak of its activities. The facilities would however suffer from shortages of spares, a lack of maintenance, and also damage from Allied bombing in 1944 and 1945. By the time of the Japanese surrender in August 1945, much was left in a state of disrepair. Extensive rehabilitation work and expense was required after the war to restore the facilities.
The cellar of the much storied Keppel House. There has even been speculation that Yamashita’s gold is buried beyond the walls at the far end.
About Komoto Ekasa (小本江笠)and his link to Keppel House
Born in March 1895, Komoto was a graduate of Department of Marine Engineering of Tokyo Imperial University and joined MHI’s Kobe Shipyard and Machinery Works soon after his graduation in 1920. His death and place of burial was apparently not forgotten and several members of the naval architect’s family have paid visits to the grave over the years. A participant during a recent tour I conducted to Keppel House mentioned that a granddaughter of the naval architect had been in contact with her and had revealed that Omoto along with several other Syonan Shipyard staff members were residents of house (which the site of the grave had once been on the grounds of) during their time here. More on Keppel House can be found at: A house on which Singapore’s modern port was built.
A Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets tour to Keppel House on 29 Oct 2023. The tour was conducted with the kind support of the Singapore Land Authority.
Another set of photographs from the Harrison Forman collection offering a peak into Singapore’s past is one that contains views, in complete colour, of a famous but long demolished mansion and its curious garden in 1941. Both were objects of much fascination, and its even had the likes of Carl Mydans also photographing it for LIFE Magazine that same year, for a feature on Singapore published in July 1941.
Perched on an elevation that was described as “probably one of the best” for a mansion in Singapore and one that commanded a “striking view” of a great part of the island, the lavish and gilt-domed residence of the Aw’s in Pasir Panjang, Haw Par Villa, must have been a magnificent sight for the one thousand guests who were invited for its housewarming party in March 1937. No expense had been spared in the construction and the fit out of the rather lavish interiors of the mansion, which was topped by seven gilded domes. Such was the amount of gold that was used that Singapore’s entire stock of gold was reportedly depleted because of it!
Haw Par Villa in full colour, Harrison Forman, 1941.
Designed by pioneering Singapore architect Ho Kwong Yew, Haw Par Villa sat on a plan that was rather uniquely a series of circles centred on a central hall that was surrounded by circular rooms. Entering the house, one would have encountered its reception hall, and beyond that the central hall. There was also a drawing room, a dining room, four bedrooms with dressing rooms and attached bathrooms, all of which were furnished in a rather ostentatious manner with furnishings and decorative items that were handpicked by Mr Aw Boon Haw from the “best furnishing houses and decorators” during his travels to America and Europe. Even the coloured cement walls inside the house were expensively decorated — with mother of pearl inlays. There were also specially made bronze panels which had been brought in from Europe featuring tigers in various poses, lining the doorways inside the house. The opulent interiors would also have been brought quite literally to light by day and by night, having been illuminated by the generous amount of light filtering through stained-glass laylights fitted on the domes, and through the house’s curved steel-framed windows in the daytime, and by coloured lighting after nightfall.
A much photographed pagoda, Harrison Forman, 1941.
Almost as soon as it was completed, the villa, and the fantastical and extravagantly laid out and publicly accessible garden that was created to complement it, became an instant hit with visitors to Singapore, as well as with the local population. Open to the public, the garden was laid out over several terraces of the elevation that the villa stood on, and although it was meant to complement the mansion rather than take centrestage, much attention was drawn to it by curious press reporters and photographers. Its decorative structures, such as the rockeries and grottoes of artificial rocks, a pagoda, miniature buildings and figurines depicting animals such as cranes and storks, drew a fair bit of interest as did its 50 feet by 25 feet swimming pool.
A garden that was created to complement the villa, Harrison Forman, 1941.
The garden soon became synonymous with Singapore and a must-visit visitor attraction. Among its early visitors were Hollywood couple, William Keighley and Genevieve Tobin during part of their honeymoon in Singapore in May 1939, 39 Australian schoolboys visiting Singapore with the Young Australia League in January 1939. The garden also took centrestage for a pahit party (cocktail party) that was thrown for a visiting Republic of China military delegation in May 1941, which was attended by the British military’s top brass based in Singapore. Such was Haw Par Villa’s draw that it seemed to be the first out-of-town destination to which “all newcomers to Singapore” were brought to — as was the case with a batch of Australian nurses with the Australian Army Nursing Service who were sent to Singapore in September 1941.1
AANS nurses visiting Haw Par Villa (with the villa seen in the background) in September 1941 (source: Australian War Memorial, public domain, copyright expired).
The villa was itself was a draw. Public access to it was permitted during open houses held on festive occasions such as the Chinese New Year. Sadly, the villa did not survive very long. It was taken over for use as a residence during the Japanese Occupation and reportedly housed both Japanese and German officers.2 Poorly maintained, it was left in a poor state by the end of the war. Looting had also stripped the house of all its furnishings and many of the statues from its garden.
By early 1951, Mr Aw Boon Haw, who had lost his younger brother during the war (Boon Par died in Rangoon in 1944), had Haw Par Villa demolished in the hope that he could have a mansion modelled after a Chinese-styled palace put up in its place. Later, a 200 ft high pagoda was proposed. The ongoing austerity drive, which limited spending on private home to a mere $50,000, put paid to Mr Aw’s plans and he turned his attention instead to expanding the set of displays. In doing so, he placed focus on using displays to provide moral guidance to visiting members of the public through the depiction of scenes from Chinese folklore, the Chinese classics, and Buddhist and Taoist teaching which contained messaging on moral values such as filial piety.
Both Taoist and Buddhist themes feature in Haw Par Villa’s displays, Harrison Forman, 1941.
Mr Aw passed away in September 1954 without being able to fulfil a desire to have the demolished villa replaced. The garden, which took on the name “Haw Par Villa” from its association with the missing villa, continued to be a popular spot for visitors to the island. Its collection of figurines and tableaux would have appeared to have been quite bizarre to those not schooled in traditional Chinese teachings and was at the very minimum, a source of amusement and fascination. Among those who graced the garden was the very first Miss Universe, Armi Kuufcla, who visited in April 1953. Another famous personality to visit was teenage idol, Frankie Avalon, late in 1965.
Harrison Forman, 1941.
The garden was also popular for fashion shoots, and as a filming location. Among the movies with scenes shot at Haw Par Villa was a joint Bollywood-Malayan production, “Singapore” in 1959, which contained a scene that saw the popular Maria Menado dance with Bollywood heartthrob Shammi Kapoor. The film was released in 1960. A 1966 Hollywood production, Kommisar X, aka Operation Far East, aka So Darling, So Deadly, had a scene that featured a chase through the garden, and a 1967 British production, Pretty Polly (also A Matter of Innocence) included an evening scene that was filmed at Haw Par Villa.
Harrison Forman, 1941.
Following Aw Boon Haw’s death, Boon Par’s son, Aw Cheng Chye, introduced displays that broke with the garden’s theme, and its Chinese flavour. An avid traveller, Cheng Chye put up International Corners to mark his overseas trips. While this may have contributed to the garden’s quirkiness, it did much to alter its character. Much, much more has happened since. An attempt to convert the garden into a theme park in 1990, failed rather miserably. That saw a ride through an all too prominent dragon. This some believe, brought negative energy on the garden due to the incompatibility of the dragon and the tiger (the “Haw” in Boon Haw’s name, translates into tiger). Most recently, the garden seems to have gone the way of hell, with the current operator intent on Hell’s Museum becoming Haw Par Villa’s draw even if hell, especially the non-Chinese interpretations of life after death, was never intended as the garden’s dominant theme.
The dragon that swallowed hell up – during its theme park days.
1A number from the group were among a second batch of evacuees who would depart on board the SS Vyner Brooke on 12 February 1942, which was attacked and sunk by the Japanese forces on 14 February 1942 in the Bangka Strait. Out of a group of 65 nurses on board the Vyner Brooke, only 24 survived the war, with 21 losing their lives during a massacre on Radji Beach on Bangka Island.
2There was a German U-Boat repair and supply facility maintained at Pulau Damar Darat, which included a graving dock. Among the residences that German naval personnel were known to have used were ones in Pasir Panjang and also at Gilstead Road.
A destination whose attraction is its cool cafes and restaurants, and trendy boutiques, it is hard to tell that Chip Bee Gardens, when it was completed in the mid-1960s, served as an abode for British military personnel based in Pasir Panjang, Tanglin and Alexandra. Architecturally unique as a military residential estate, it wears the look and feel of a typical 1960s private housing development in Singapore and even parts of Malaysia, with its mix of residential and commercial properties.
Terrace houses at Chip Bee Gardens
Designed by Yang Tye Tai Architects, its developers, United Development and Finance Co, embarked on the development of Chip Bee as a private residential housing estate. Plans for it were announced in 1962. A year after construction started, the developer entered into an initial contract with the British military’s Services’ Lands Board for the sale of several housing units. A second contract was negotiated in 1965 that involved the sale of the bulk of the development to the board. Under the contract, a total of 603 units were to have been completed by 1967 for the board, comprising 349 three-bedroom terraced houses, 194 three-bedroom units in seven nine-storey apartment blocks, and 20 shop lots with 40 flats above.
Princess Margaret visiting Chip Bee Estate in October 1972 (via National Archives of Singapore).
The acquisition, which cost the Services’ Lands Board a reported $17 million, signalled a shift in the British military’s housing policy. The board had been renting civilian properties to address a housing shortfall with the expansion in the numbers of personnel being brought into Singapore and Malaya in the early 1960s. Parts of “Chip Bee Gardens Married Quarters Estate” would be ready for occupation by 1966.
The demolished apartment blocks would have been on the right.
While the acquisition of Chip Bee Gardens was carried out in anticipation of a long term British military presence in Singapore, circumstances would very quickly change and the estate had to be sold almost as soon as it was completed in 1968. Britain had then already announced its intention to withdraw its military forces from Singapore. The sale of the estate was negotiated with the Singapore government, who paid just over 40% of the price that Britain had invested in the estate with the understanding that British military families could stay on after the properties changed hands in 1970, up to the point of the British withdrawal in late 1971. Chip Bee Gardens’ function as a military estate however, went beyond the pull-out, with members of the Australian-led ANZUK Force occupying the estate until Australia’s 1975 withdrawal from the ANZUK arrangements. The Singapore government, through the Housing and Development Board, then put the properties up for rent. Shops and popular eateries snapped up the commercial spaces, but the take-up rate for residential units was poor.
Two blocks were built with 40 apartments above and 20 shop lots on the ground floor. The shop lots were used for communal facilities and to house amenities.
Through the years, several agencies have managed the properties. The Land Office took over the management in 1989 before handing it over to Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) in 2002. It was during the watch of the Land Office that the apartment blocks demolished in 1992 and the land sold to private developers. The Singapore Land Authority, the successor to the Land Office, has managed the properties since 2015.
The origin of the name Chip Bee
“Chip Bee” is Hokkien for Jimei (集美), a village and district near Xiamen (Amoy) in Fujian province in China. It was from Chip Bee that the likes of rubber magnate Tan Kah Kee and his one-time employee and founder of Nanyang University, Tan Lark Sye, hailed from. Tan Lark Sye’s nephew, Tan Eng Joo, was thought to have owned the land on which Chip Bee Gardens was built and was a associate of Ko Teck Kin, then President of Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the developer of Chip Bee Gardens, United Development and Finance Co.
Among American photo-journalist Harrison Forman’s vast collection of some 50,000 photographs, found in the American Geographical Society Library of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee are the wonderfully captured scenes of a Singapore in 1941. The photographs, which include a number of rare colour captures, provide a glimpse of the bustling colony that Singapore was, just as preparations were being made for a war that many felt would not come to its shores.
A view of Hong Lim Green and the so-called “Suicide Flats” built in the early 1950s by the SIT (photo: Harrison Forman Collection, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
The collection also contains a number of photographs taken in the 1950s and 1960s that show a Singapore in transition, as Singapore went from colony to state, and eventually towards merger with Malaya and independence. One of these photographs, taken in the mid-1950s, is seen here. It captures the then newly erected 9-storey blocks of flats at Upper Pickering Street / Upper Hokkien Street (a plot now occupied by Parkroyal Collection Pickering) that was put up by the Singapore Improvement Trust or SIT (the block in the middle was in fact built to house the SIT’s HQ).
Completed in 1952, the blocks were Singapore’s tallest public housing blocks and the tallest buildings in Chinatown. As with many tall public housing blocks over the years, they had an unfortunate association with suicides and became known as the “suicide flats” almost as soon as it came up. The blocks of flats, also acquired a reputation for being haunted. This was not without reason as there were a number of reports of hauntings. An ex-resident — a former colleague of mine, who lived on the top floor of one of the blocks, described how he had resisted a compulsion to jump from the balcony at the urging of “a group of children” who were calling to him from the ground. He told his parents about the encounter and was never allowed out on the balcony again.
The SIT, which was established to carry out town planning and later took on the role of providing public housing, built Tiong Bahru Estate and also put up estates such as Princess Elizabeth Estate and Old Kallang Airport Estate (where Dakota Crescent is) and set what then was the largest public housing programme at Queenstown in motion. They were also responsible for putting up several smaller clusters or individual public housing blocks such as the Princess Elizabeth flats at Farrer Park, blocks in the Bugis area and in Kampong Kapor. SIT made initial plans and carried out the early land acquisition for Toa Payoh and built the old Kim Keat Estate as a prelude to Toa Payoh before being disbanded in 1960 — when the Housing and Development Board (HDB) was formed. The rest, as they say, is history. HDB became one of Singapore’s great success stories and built twice the number of public housing units that SIT had managed to put up in its three decades of existence in a matter of just three years.
SIT built Tiong Bahru
While the blocks at Upper Pickering Street have been demolished, the legacy of the SIT can however still be found. The SIT built portion of Tiong Bahru has largely been conserved. There are also several blocks around Dakota Crescent that are being conserved following calls to keep the surviving part of the old estate. Beyond public housing, the back lanes behind shophouses, and the spiral staircases found behind them, could be thought of as another legacy of the SIT with the trust having been responsible for executing the scheme following their formation. There are also the estates that the SIT built and maintained that housed their senior staff. These are still very much with us and can be found at Adam Park and at Kay Siang Road.
There’s no better time to have a look at the newly restored St Joseph Church than during the Singapore Night Festival. Beautifully illuminated for the festival, the church, which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful churches in Singapore, is quite a sight to behold. What is especially wonderful during the night festival is that the church has been opened to the public for heritage tours and performances featuring the beautiful voice of Corrinne May and also the church’s Sacred Heart Choir.
To appreciate the beauty of the wonderfully restored interior of the church, it is also best to make a daytime visit on a sunny afternoon. That is when the church’s beautiful set of stained glass is best appreciated. The church, which closed for extensive repairs and renovation in August 2017, was reopened in time to celebrate its 110th anniversary. The second church to stand on the site, the current building was consecrated by the Bishop of Macau, Dom João Paulino Azevedo e Castro on the 30th of June 1912.
Established by the Portuguese Mission, the church catered to the Portuguese and Portuguese Eurasian community and continues to the the spiritual home of the Portuguese Eurasian community. The Portuguese Mission’s presence in Singapore can be traced back to 1825 and followed the arrival of Jose D’Almeida to Singapore on a permanent basis. Mass was initially held at Dr D’Almeida’s Beach Road house before a chapel was set up on Bras Basah Road in 1933. The mission then built a church on the current site in the 1850s. The church was for much of its history, administered by the Portuguese Diocese of Macau (and the Diocese of Goa before that). It was only in 1981, that it came under the Archdiocese of Singapore. The Bishop of Macau however, continued to appoint priests to the church until 1999.
Developments around Singapore General Hospital in the last five years or so, have altered the complexion of its much storied surroundings. With that, a number of markers, which linked the area to its much storied past were permanently lost. Future developments threaten to do the same with old Alexandra Hospital, with plans to redevelop a part of its grounds as a nursing home for dementia patients recently announced. While it may seem to involve only a small part of the grounds, what it signals is the beginning of the end for the hospital campus and some of its historically significant sites as part of what will eventually be the “Alexandra Health Campus”.
Alexandra Military Hospital
It is good that three of the hospital’s existing buildings, ones that serve as the face of the hospital, are already protected for conservation. There is however a question of context in keeping older structures, especially when they are drowned or find themselves minimised by the scale that new developments are often given. Given the history of the hospital and the significance of many of its structures and spaces, there must be more of the campus that deserves to be considered for conservation.
The spacious, green and quiet grounds of the hospital could be overtaken by the mess of concrete in the near future as there are plans to turn it into the Alexandra Health Campus.
Alexandra Hospital’s roots lie in its construction as Singapore’s main military hospital. This came at the tail end of an effort to turn Singapore into the “Gibraltar of the East”, and a naval outpost to which the British fleet could be sent to in event that its assets in the Far East could be defended. This brought new garrisons of troops to the island. With only the aging and glaringly inadequate Tanglin Military Hospital to serve the huge contingent of European soldiers on the island, there was a need for a large enough hospital. In July 1940, Alexandra opened as the British military establishment’s most modern hospital this side of the Suez and counted among the largest medical facilities that were built for the British army.
In Alexandra Hospital’s campus, there is a mix of pre and post World War II buildings.
Tragedy was to befall the hospital within a year and a half of its opening when on the eve of the Fall of Singapore, the hospital became the scene of a most horrendous of atrocities. In spite of the hospital being clearly marked and identified as a medical facility, Japanese troops entered the hospital late in the morning of 14 February 1942, allegedly in pursuit of British Indian Army soldiers who had fired on them. What followed was the wanton killing of staff and patients over the course of two days. Estimates of those killed in the course of the two days of savagery go as high as 300. More information on the massacre can be found in this link.
One of the hospital’s ward blocks not protected for conservation. This houses the auditorium, which was a chapel during the war and one of the points of entry of Japanese troops.
Two buildings, Blocks 18 and 19, are threatened by the development of the nursing home. Even if the signs seem to point to the buildings’ retention, how that will work could involve the buildings being incorporated as parts of larger structures. Block 19, also known as Elizabeth House, is the newer of the two blocks and is particularly unique. Having been constructed in two parts to house female nursing staff in 1949 and in 1958, what distinguishes the modernist blocks are exterior ventilation blocks that serve as privacy screens.
The former Elizabeth House, Block 19, with its older and newer sections and its privacy screens.
The construction of Elizabeth House came at a time when Britain was involved in the counter insurgency efforts against the communists in Malaya in a campaign known as the Malayan Emergency. With Alexandra Hospital, also known then as British Military Hospital Singapore, being Britain’s principal military facility in the Far East, it played a crucial role in supporting the effort. New buildings were built on the campus including Elizabeth House in support of the large amount of military personnel sent by Britain to Singapore and Malaya. Elizabeth House was closely associated with nurses with the then exclusively female Queen Alexandra Royal Army Nursing Corps or QARANC in short and known as tyhe “Garden Billet” to what were known as the QAs or nurses. Among the stories that have been told of the block was how its residents would sunbathe at the badminton court behind it.
Alexandra Hospital is a historical site with a plaque to recall its history placed in its gerden,
Based on what the Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced, as reported by the Straits Times on 26 June 2022, it is hard to see Elizabeth House surviving without substantial change or even demolition. While the sounds are for keeping the structure, there seems ample leeway given to the the successful tenderer (for consultancy services in regard to the nursing home development). What will be required of the tenderer is an assessment as to what opportunities there are to design the nursing home with respect to the heritage value of Blocks 18 and 19 — whatever that means. It seems quite possible that the option or a “documentation and heritage interpretation” route, with “elements of the blocks incorporated in the nursing home’s design” could be possible given the site’s constraints. If that is the case, Blocks 18 and 19 may just be a reinterpreted illusion. Without an actual form, and certainly without substance, we could just be left with a mirage that we in Singapore seem so fond of creating.
Block 18, built as the Commanding Officers’ residence.
Corridors of Block 19 – the former Elizabeth House.
There is little doubt that Singapore’s port has been a key driver of its success. The roots of the port as we know of it today were really laid by commercial dock companies established in the mid-1800s, chief amongst which were the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company and the Patent Slip and Dock Company (later the New Harbour Dock Company). Their possession of wharfage originally put up to support repair and resupply activities in the decade that preceded the opening of the Suez Canal, placed Singapore in an excellent position to meet the growth in shipping that followed and the advances in ship technology that had already been taking place.
Singapore Harbour Board Map, c. 1920s, showing location of Keppel House
Through consolidation, a duopoly was formed between the two dock companies before collaboration, first through a somewhat monopolistic joint-purse arrangement and eventually, through a merger saw to the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company emerging as a single big player in the provision of port and ship repair services in the final years of the nineteenth century. A direct result of this was the Straits Settlements government expropriation of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company and the formation of Tanjong Pagar Dock Board . As a state-controlled body run with the interests of Singapore in mind, the board which morphed into the Singapore Harbour Board (SHB) and from 1964, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA), was able to develop the port in a structured manner that was necessary to meet the challenges that were to follow.
Stairway to place of much mystery, 11 Keppel Hill was built to house a manager of the New Harbour Dock Company and is thought to have been completed around 1899. The house, which has invited much interest, has more than a tale or two to tell.
Today, all that seems left to tell the story of the port’s origins are a handful of historical assets and former graving docks that now enhance residential developments around Keppel Bay as water features. Among the artefacts are those that came into the possession of Mapletree during the corporatisation of PSA. These include a steam crane that can now be found outside the revamped and somewhat unfriendly former St James’ Power Station, now the Singapore headquarters of Dyson. What could be thought of as another piece in the jigsaw would the former residence of the Chairman of SHB. This sits somewhat forlornly in isolation, in a quiet corner on the southern slope of Mount Faber. What I find especially interesting about the mansion is that it stands to recall the original players in the port’s operations having been completed just as the ball on the eventual formation of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Board was set in motion and is thus a marker of a significant point in the port’s history.
Perched on the southern slope of Mount Faber, the house would have offered an wonderful view of Keppel Harbour when it was first built.
The house in question, lies close to the reservoir that was (allegedly) rediscovered in 2014, at 11 Keppel Hill. Completed in the final years of the 1800s and on land that was owned by the New Harbour Dock Company, it would have been erected to house the company’s most senior manager, being the largest of a cluster of new residences designed by Lermit and Westerhout that company had been in the process of erecting around and after 1897. While I have not come across plans for the house at 11 Keppel Hill, there seems to be several similarities in the plans developed by the architects for the other bungalows. This includes a central air and light well (if I can call it that) that is topped by a jack roof. A mention of what appears to be the house in question can also be found in a 1899 newspaper article. That describes a climb made by a party from the dock company from a reservoir it was constructing on the slopes of Mount Faber to the site of its “new house”. A description of its location of the house was also provided, with the house being “overlooked by the Mount Faber flagstaff”, and that it commanded a “splendid view of New Harbour and its surroundings.” The house, is the only one of the cluster of residences, one of which was Keppel Bungalow, that has been left standing.
An interesting feature of the house is a set of cast iron columns mounted on a concrete base. The rather incongruous overhang that the columns support would probably have been an upper floor verandah that someone saw fit to enclose.
With the amalgamation of the two dock companies, the house was named “Keppel House” and housed the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company’s Resident Civil Engineer, a position that was created in 1901 with the extensive construction works that the company had embarked on in mind. The first to hold the position was a Mr J Llewelyn Holmes, who left the position in June 1903. Holmes’ replacement, Mr Alan Railton, was known to have taken up residence at Keppel House.
Close up of the base of an iron column.
Having been left vacant following the expropriation, Keppel House was then put up for rent before becoming the official residence of the Chairman of the SHB some time around 1918. It was then already occupied by Mr Stanley Arthur Lane. Lane’s move into the house occured sometime around 1916. A civil engineer, once of Sir John Jackson and Company, Lane came to Singapore late in 1907 to take up the role of Assistant Manager with the Tanjong Pagar Dock Board. Often acting as the Chairman of the Singapore Harbour Board in the absence of his predecessor John Rumney Nicholson, Lane’s appointment as Chairman came in 1918.
Stanley Lane, a resident of 11 Keppel Hill from around 1916 to 1923.
Keppel House most eventful years would come with the appointment of Mr George Trimmer — Sir George Trimmer from 1937, as Chairman upon Lane’s retirement in 1923. Trimmer retired in 1938, having overseen a massive port expansion programme that added almost a kilometre of new wharfage to accommodate large ocean-going vessels and added a number of new transit godowns. Trimmer was known to be an excellent host. It was also during Trimmer’s tenure at Keppel House that the nearby reservoir doubled up as a private swimming pool for the house’s residents and its guests.
Sir George Trimmer, a long time resident of Keppel House.
An especially interesting event that took place during Trimmer’s stay in Keppel House was the successful transmission of both live and recorded music from it to a shortwave transmitter several miles away and then over the air. The experiment was conducted by an amateur radio broadcaster, who was also an employee of SHB, Robert Earle. Earle ran a radio station, V1SAB, with his wife for several years in the 1930s, broadcasting late in the evening twice a week.
The garage and the servants’ quarters. The house would have had stables originally.
Trimmer’s successor was Mr H K Rodgers, whose confirmation as Chairman and General Manager of the SHB was confirmed in August 1939 just as the dark clouds of war gathered over Europe. Rodgers would soon find himself caught up in the SHB’s own preparations for war. Keppel House would itself become a venue for events connect with the war in Europe and later, with the war’s arrival to Singapore’s shores. The performance of Dutch choir at a 1941 Christmas party thrown by Rodgers, saw guests, which reported numbered a hundred, join in the singing of Silent Night, Holy Night and Noel. Rodgers, would soon find himself organising an evacuation of SHB’s European staff, many of whom left Singapore on board the Bagan — a Penang ferry — on 11 February 1942 with Singapore’s fall seemingly imminent. Rodgers, who saw to the organisation of the evacuation from his residence, would himself leave Singapore early on 14 February 1942 — a day before Singapore’s inglorious fall — on the Tenggaroh, a launch that belonged to the Sultan of Johor. Rodgers eventually found his way to Australia, having made his way to Sumatra on the Tenggaroh. He returned to Singapore in 1946 to take up the role of the Managing Director of United Engineers Limited, a firm which operated a shipyard at Tanjong Rhu.
Iron balustrades on the rear verandah.
The Japanese Occupation, saw the operation of SHB’s repair facilities as the Syonan Shipyard by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) with staff from MHI’s Kobe yard. The first batch of MHI employees arrived in Singapore in March 1942 and immediately set about the task of restoring the damaged facilities. The working conditions at the yard took their toll on the MHI staff. At the end of 1944, some 15% of MHI employees sent to Singapore had either perished or return home due to illness. Among those who died was an engineer whose tomb can be found near Keppel House. It is quite probably that the engineer, as well as other members of MHI’s Syonan Shipyard’s senior staff, were in residence at Keppel House during this time.
A view of the rear of the house.
After the war, the house reverted to being a residence for the SHB Chairman with Mr H B Basten being its first post-occupation resident. The arrangement would end in 1964 with the formation of PSA. The house found several uses over the years, becoming the PSA Central Training School in the 1970s, following which it was leased out as offices. Its tenants included a management consulting firm and an architectural firm who maintained flats on the upper floor for its staff. The house, which is currently vacant, was part of a group of houses on the southern ridges that were given conservation status in 2005.
This visit to Keppel House was carried out with the kind permission of the Singapore Land Authority.
Developed by JTC, one-north offers a visual spectacle of futuristic buildings, an abundance of greenery, former military structures and some rather quirky spaces. A place for work and for the flowering of ideas, one-north is also an exciting and vibrant place to live, play and learn in.
one-north, a visual adventure is a series of photowalks that is presented by Jerome Lim in collaboration with JTC to bring out one-north’s architectural beauty, and its fun and vibrant spaces. Two walks have been completed, whilst a third will be held on Saturday 16 July 2022. This will provide participants with an opportunity to take a walk through the hip, quirky, and quite instagrammable co-living and co-working space, Lyf one-north.
Details of Visit: Date : 16 July 2022 Time : 9 am to 10.45 am
As it would not be possible to make replacements, kindly register only if you are able to make the visit by filling the form in this link (registration closed as of 11 am, 11 July 2022 as all spaces have been filled).
Registrations will close when the participant limit has been reached or on 13 July 2022 at 12 noon, whichever comes first.
one-north, a visual adventure is a series of photowalks that is presented by Jerome Lim in collaboration with JTC to uncover one-north’s architectural beauty and its vibrant spaces.
Postings related to the previous one-north, a visual adventure photowalk (to Eclipse):
There is no better time to visit Eden Hall — the rather grand official residence of the British High Commissioner at Nassim Road, than on an occasion when a party is thrown. It provides an opportunity to view the house in all its splendour and indulge in some good old British fish and chips. Having received an invitation to Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebration by virtue of my appearance in a video in which I recalled Her Majesty’s visit to my Toa Payoh flat in 1972 that the High Commission had put together, I was able to do just that in early June. It was my second visit to the grand old residence, but one due to the significance of the occasion, was rather special.
Eden Hall on the occasion of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, June 2022.
Eden Hall has been an object of fascination for me ever since I learnt of its link to Ezekiel Saleh (E S) Manasseh. A wealthy Baghdadi Jew, Manasseh held a substantial fortune and together with a younger brother Rupert, ran the Singapore arm of a firm that together with four other brothers, had inherited from their father Saleh Manasseh of Calcutta. The firm had considerable success in the trade in opium, and later in jute, which was used for making gunny sacks . E S Manasseh, who was perhaps best known as being a co-founder of Goodwood Park Hotel, passed on in May 1944 as a civilian internee in Sime Road Camp (to which civilian internees were moved to from Changi prison that same month).
Her Excellency Kara Owen, the British High Commissioner to Singapore, speaking during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Celebrations.
Designed by R A J Bidwell of Swan and Maclaren and built for E S Manasseh, Eden Hall was set on a sprawling 1.8 ha site. The site was one carved out of the former Lady Hill estate and had been purchased in 1903 by business partner in the family firm, Saul Jacob Nathan. While the construction of the house dates back to 1904, Manasseh apparently only purchased the site outright in 1912. Manasseh had it named Eden Hall, relating it to a goblet on which a family’s fate depended, “The Luck of Eden Hall” — that was the subject of a poem of the same name that was known to Manasseh. A rather interesting feature that distinguishes Eden Hall from other mansions is its Wedgwood Jasperware-like sprig relief type patterns decorating its façade.
E S Manasseh
Through S Manasseh and Co, Eden Hall was initially let out to a Mrs Elizabeth Campbell, who ran a boarding house in it that might have been quite a rowdy place. Following his marriage to a widow, Elsie Trilby Bath in 1916, E S Manasseh moved in with his new wife and her children from a previous marriage. Also moving in in 1916 was another of E S Manasseh’s brothers, Alan, who had come to Singapore to replace Rupert as E S’ partner. Alan Manasseh, incidentally was the father of the renowned British architect Leonard Manasseh, who was actually born at Eden Hall in May 1916 not long after his parents had moved in.
Chole Manasseh, granddaughter of Leonard Manasseh, at Eden Hall in May 2019.
The mansion was reportedly used by the Japanese as an officers’ mess during the Japanese Occupation, and after the war and death of E S Manasseh, came into the hands of Vivian Bath, Manasseh’s stepson and one of Elsie Bath’s two children. Bath would sell it to the British Government in 1955 for £55,000 for use by its Commissioner General. At Bath’s insistence, a plaque with the words “May the Union Jack fly here forever” was fixed to the base of the flagpole flying the Union Jack. Eden Hall subsequently became the residence of the British Commissioner and then upon independence, the High Commissioner to Singapore.
The plaque with the words “May the Union Jack fly here forever”, seen during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Fears emerged in 1983 that the Union Jack’s perch atop the Nassim Road flagpole would be brought to an end by an austerity drive that targetted lavish diplomats homes. During that time, the fact that there were in fact calls for the Foreign Office to dispose Eden Hall since 1973. Fortunately for Eden Hall and Britains subsequent High Commissioners to Singapore, a decision was made to keep Eden Hall in 1984. The size of the land that surrounds the mansion has however been substantially reduced through sales of several plots. The first in April 2001, of a 1.01 ha plot to motoring tycoon Peter Kwee and “Popiah King” Sam Goi, netted just over $50 million. An exercise was also held to offer two additional plots totalling 0.31 ha in 2015. Though initially unsuccessful, the two sites would eventually be sold when their sale was relaunched the following year, with OUE paying a reported $56.6 million for the plots.
A clearer image of the plaque.
Eden Hall in 2019.
Around Eden Hall, during the jubilee celebrations and in May 2019.
Old spaces made new often lose a certain level of their charm in the effort to refresh them in the way that the modern world demands. More often than not, their age-old fabric is discarded, and out with it goes the stories that the years and users of the space may have been woven into it. It was therefore with great delight that in rather quaint old space by the name of Baroque House, which has retained its fabric even with renewal, and along with it, a certain charm and mystery. Housed in a century-old shophouse, its name was inspired by the term “Chinese Baroque”, which is applied in Singapore to describe very ornately adorned shophouses. In Baroque House, one finds quite an unlikely setting for what it has become: a private kitchen, an event space, and most of all, a place to discover.
Ventilation blocks from the past inside Baroque House.
My journey of discovery began almost from the off, when I received an invitation from Sonia Ong, the proprietress of Baroque House. The invitation, laced with a tinge of mystery, promised a “secret garden” tour, and more importantly, the irresistible company of good “spirits” through Baroque House’s Bourbon Tasting Omakase dinner menu, which did not take any persuasion for me to agree to. So, armed with only a hint of what to expect and an address, I made my way down Rowell Road one Monday afternoon. Rowell Road is of course a street that is better known for the wrong reasons and I was just as curious as to what Baroque House was all about, as I was about why Rowell Road?
Inside Baroque House.
It wasn’t hard to identify the house in question, its closed pink timber doors and windows and its floral decor setting it apart from the other shophouses along the same row. The exterior was just about all about Baroque House that matched what I had imagined it would be. With the parting of the doors — which did not creak when they were opened as I might have expected them to, I was greeted by Sonia herself who on stepping aside, brought the somewhat oddly and somewhat spartanly furnished space into view. A large chandelier made the space all the more curious, as did the hall’s well worn decorative floor tiles. The cement tiles had age written all over them and that added to mysterious quality of the place. Written in the tiles was not just age but also faded-glory, as it was safe to say that they were laid for an occupant or owner who was rather well off. This set the tone for the visit and I found myself eager to discover more! Joyfully, through Sonia’s Baroque House Secret Garden Tour, I was very soon able to learn much more.
Doors that are apparently a century old, beyond which lies the rather intriguing old world that is Baroque House.
Sonia would reveal was that the house was one of a pair (Nos. 29 and 31), both of which were constructed circa 1919 for a Fong Sien Long. Fong, as it turns out, was a member of the nearby Kampong Kapor Methodist Church. A seemingly wealthy property owner, Fong’s portfolio extended to sites around MacKenzie Road, Jalan Besar, Queen Street and Koek Road. The Rowell Road houses were, quite interestingly, designed by well-known Eurasian architect J B Westerhout. Architectural works in Westerhout’s name include what is known today as the Temasek Shophouse, and the Stamford Arts Centre.
No 29 and 31 Rowell Road, which were a pair built for Mr Fong Sien Leong that were designed by J B W
From what I have dug out on my own, it would appear that the house may have exchanged hands in 1931 when N B Westerhout — J B’s elder brother and a lawyer was reported to have purchased 29 Rowell Road at a mortgagee’s tender. What Sonia has found out was that more recently, the house — built originally as a residential shophouse and used as a low-cost residential unit at some point in time, was used as a commercial space by Cheng Fong Signcraft. After the sign craft shop moved out, the unit remained unoccupied for a period of about five years before Sonia chanced upon it. It would seem that it is their stories that have been “etched” in patterns of wear on the floor tiles. What seems remarkable to me is that the tiles have not only survived all these years, but were also — save for the wear, very much intact and that Sonia made a conscious effort to retain the character of the shophouse by keeping them.
Worn decorative floor tiles.
For Sonia, creating Baroque House has been a labour of love. It was in a quest to fulfil a life-long dream of owning a shophouse that she stumbled upon this well-worn house in Little India — or as I prefer to call it, the Village of Lime (Soonambu Kambam). Drawn by its character and the stories of past glory that the shophouse’s well worn fabric seemed to tell, it was love at first sight for Sonia. She set about purchasing the house and as she puts it, “nursed it back” to its current condition. Intent to keep the sense of use and history of the house, Sonia ignored suggestions to have much of the shophouse’s fabric replaced, renewing and replacing only what was needed such as termite infested timbers. She was thus able to keep the character of the house as she first saw it and retain it as a veritable treasure trove of past memories.
The reception hall.
Necessary repairs, carried out on the roof, would reveal what has become one of the highlights of Sonia’s secret garden tour, a hidden secret that the shophouse must have held through the course of its one-hundred and more years! The secret, a decorated party wall that appears to have served as an end gable wall, had been kept well hidden behind the house’s ceiling boards. In the motifs of the plasterwork there is also much mystery and begged the question of what it represented or why it was put there. What Sonia speculates is that the decorative plasterwork, and perhaps the floor tiles on the ground floor, may be an indication that what would have been a vacant plot of land before 29 and 31 Rowell Road was built was some kind of yard for the house next door — which rather curiously is numbered No 21.
Mysterious plasterwork that remained hidden for a hundred years.
Sonia’s choices in decorating the house is in keeping with the baroque in its name. Beside the chandelier, ornate furniture pieces that include an exquisite antique Chinese conjugal bed, artwork by local artist Jeremy Hiah, an antique baby grand piano, and somewhat out-of-place but yet in-place skateboard decks decorated with the likeness of Paul Gauguin’s art are some of items that Sonia has brought in, giving the house a quirky and curious quality.
The dining room with the best table.
With the discovery of the house’s interior complete (I did not have enough and actually had a second look later), it was time for an equally intriguing dining experience, and not to forget of course, some bourbon! This was served in the dining room (at the best table) with dessert served in the hall and was experience in itself! The ornately decorated dining room does put one in the mood for food and conversation and that started with the serving of the first course, with which foie gras and pumpkin soup served with fig cracker was paired with a Wild Turkey Rare Breed. Next was a Maker’s Mark 46 — which I instantly took to, served with a meaty but tender and delicious main course of wood-fired Wagyu brisket, pulled pork, spare ribs and smoked chicken. Dessert was interestingly a banana and marshmallow pudding, which I could douse with a bit of Angel’s Envy bourbon before doing a DIY flambé of the assembly.
The first course of the Bourbon Tasting Omakase dinner menu.
The main course with Makers’ Mark 46.
DIY time.
In all, the experience was really quite unique and one that, especially if you are looking for something quite unique and laced with discovery, I highly recommend. The experiences are not confined to the Secret Garden Tour, or to private dining and Baroque House offers an array of other activities such as Bourbon Tasting, Murder of a Millionnaire Mystery Night (a live-action game along the lines of jubensha) which comes with props, facilitators, 3-course dinner and a glass of Prosecco, Scones at Baroque House (for tea), Wine and Cheese Club, Special Rum Tasting, Sake Tasting, Champagne Tasting, Little India Marketing and Cooking Tour, Chinese Heritage Kueh cooking class, Tea Tasting sessions (and I am told unique tasting sessions such as Indian Mango tasting during the season). The house is also available for rent. For more information, please visit www.baroquehaus.com.
Developed by JTC, one-north offers a visual spectacle of buildings of the future nestled in the midst of an abundance of greenery. As much as it is a place for work and for the fruition of ideas and innovation, one-north is also exciting and vibrant as a place to live and learn in, as well as a lifestyle destination.
one-north, a visual adventure is a series of photowalks that is presented by Jerome Lim in collaboration with JTC to uncover one-north’s architectural beauty and its vibrant spaces. The first in this series of photowalks took participants to GSK Asia House in one-north’s Vista precinct, one of its eight clusters set in the rolling landscape of the Buona Vista area.
Please click on the image to register.
Next in the series of the walks, participants will get an opportunity to visit Eclipse, a building in the Fusionopolis district of one-north that takes it form from the Sandcrawler, a mobile fortress used on the desert planet of Tatooine in the epic Star Wars sci-fi series of movies. Having originally been built for Lucasfilm to serve as its regional headquarters, the building is not only shaped like the Star Wars vehicle, but also has interiors that have also been inspired by the sci-fi film series.
The walk, which will start with a look at one-north’s Hidden in Plain Sight photo exhibition, will also provide participants with the opportunity to take in a stunning perspective of one-north and Eclipse from above through a visit to the sky garden at Fusionopolis One. Details of the visit are as follows:
Date : 9 July 2022 Time : 9 am to 10.45 am Meeting Point: Atrium at Fusionopolis One
Registration is required as participants will be gaining access to non-public areas of Eclipse. As it would not be possible to make replacements, kindly register only if you are able to make the photowalk by filling the form in this link.
[Update: registration has closed as of 10:19 4 July 2022].
Do note that each registration only admits one (1) person. A unique registration is required for each participant for entry purposes. Any duplicate registrations in the same name shall be considered as one registration.
Registrations will close when the participant limit has been reached or on 6 July 2022 at 12 noon, whichever comes first.
one-north, a visual adventure is a series of photowalks that is presented by Jerome Lim in collaboration with JTC to uncover one-north’s architectural beauty and its vibrant spaces.
Postings related to the previous one-north, a visual adventure photowalk to GSK Asia House:
I love an old space, especially one in which one finds a character that speaks very loudly of its past. It seems increasingly difficult to find one, especially as the pace seems to have quickened when it comes to repurposing old spaces to remain relevant in the present and for the future. Many, having been redeployed in a meaningful way, seem to lose the essence of what they were in the effort to keep them up to speed with the demands of modern world. It was thus quite a refreshing for me to step into three wonderful examples of repurposed spaces that remain a portal into the past in a short span of less than a fortnight — the first being Sentul Depot, which is across the causeway in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Tiffin at the Yard at Sentul Depot, which is quite an instagrammable place to visit.
Old train maintenance yards always have a certain appeal for me and in them one finds many tales of the past and structures with much character. Stepping into the one at Sentul, which has partially been repurposed by a private developer as an arts and lifestyle destination, brought to mind the yard we once had in Singapore that had been part of the former railway complex at Tanjong Pagar. It is certainly a shame that the yard in Singapore or at least part of it, could not be retained and transformed in a similar way.
Workshops and maintenance sheds of the former railway yard at Tanjong Pagar seen in 2011 (since demolished)
The siting the depot at Sentul, originally named Central Railway Workshops, can be traced back to the formation of the Federated Malay States Railways (FMSR). The railway administration made a decision to house its huge build and maintenance complex in the area in 1902. The location, just three miles out of town along Batu Road, offered several advantages, chief among which was its position relative to both the main line running through the administrative centre of Selangor and the FMS, and to the Batu Caves. The Batu Caves were where the granite quarries that were exploited to provide railway ballast could be obtained from. A branch line was built to serve the workshop complex — described as “eclipsing anything of the sort in the East” — could also be extended to the quarries.
The entrance to Tiffin at the Yard at Sentul Depot
Construction on the Sentul complex began in 1903 and the workshops were fully operational by August 1906. The complex featured “huge blocks of buildings ” that housed stores, engine and carriage working sheds, running sheds, factories and foundries with a shed that was observed to be 38 feet (~11.6 metres) by 150 feet (~45.7 metres) wide. The complex was able to handle the working of up to 700 miles (1126.5 km) of open line. There were also quarters built for the engineers, supervisory staff, and also coolies (workmen) — quite a number of whom were members of the Tamil community.
Tiffin at the Yard at Sentul Depot
USAAF Raid on Sentul, 1945
Much of the yard and workshops would be destroyed by bombing during the latter stages of the Japanese Occupation. An obvious target for bombing raids made by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), well over 60 per cent of the yard and workshop area, which covered an area of some 5.7 hectares, was destroyed in early 1945. This forced the Japanese to move and disperse the railway works further afield. Following the end of the war, a huge effort was undertaken to clear the wreckage left by the air raids. The major part of the rehabilitation effort was completed only at the end of 1952, some seven years after the end of the war, having been delayed by the communist insurgency. During this time, the site became known as the Sentul Works (or Workshops).
A view of one of the disused sheds.
Sentul Works, which employed a workforce of five thousand at its height, remained in use until the the early 2000s and was decommissioned in 2009 (although KTM — the successor of the FMSR and later Malayan Railway maintains an EMU Depot next to it). The complex has since been bought up a a private developer YTL, and is in the process of being redeveloped. Among the attractions housed within the Sentul Depot complex is Tiffin at the Yard, which provides an opportunity not just to visit the former railway works, but also to dine in it.
Voluminous spaces amply illuminated by natural light are often a visually treat. We have quite a number of these spaces in Singapore, including several that go back to a time when harnessing natural light and ventilation for interior spaces all seemed very logical.
A view of the main hall of the former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station.
One fine example of a such a voluminous space is the main hall of the former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station. The hall features a high vaulted ceiling that rises to a height of some 21.6 metres to keep its users cool. A fair amount of natural light also streams into the space through windows placed at its roof’s gable ends and also along the sides, making it quite a joy to behold. The station is one of many designs that have flown off the drawing boards of architectural firm Swan and Maclaren. The design of the hall’s gable ends recalls the one of the firm’s earlier works, the Malayan Motors showroom on Orchard Road.
The former Malayan Motors showroom.
Designed in 1925, the building — like Tanjong Pagar Railway Station — can still be admired. It now stands at the end of a delightful row of conserved buildings opposite Dhoby Ghaut MRT station and looking at it, it is not hard to see how the former showroom must have been quite an attraction on Orchard Road when it was completed in early 1927. The showroom’s façade, which is effectively a gable end, is topped by a sunburst like decorative feature that seems very much to be a call for attention. The window arrangement on this face does also seem quite similar to that of the gable ends of Tanjong Pagar Railway Station’s main hall, although in being dressed to act as the showroom’s street facing façade, is much more elaborately designed.
Similarities can be seen between Tanjong Pagar Railway Station and the former Malayan Motors showroom.
The former showroom, which now stands as a marker of a stretch of Orchard Road that was at the heart of Singapore’s motoring trade, has long fascinated me. Other than its showroom on the ground floor, which I had chance to visit as a child when my father purchased a Morris Marina in the 1970s, I’ve often wondered what lay behind the glorious face of building and its multitude of windows. I long imagined that was a showroom or perhaps a workshop on its upper floors and I was rather disappointed to learn from the building’s plans that what did lie under the rather elaborate roof were offices — at least at the point of design. Knowing this, what now intrigues me is why all that elaboration for a set of mere offices? Whatever it was however, it must have been quite a space to marvel at.
What lies behind the face of the Malayan Motors showroom’s gabled ends.
The showroom’s construction came at a time when the motoring trade was on the up and when Orchard Road had established its place a centre for the business of getting around. The street in its post-plantation era, had become a choice residential neighbourhood and both residents and visitors needed a means to move around, especially with Orchard Road being some distance from the commercial area. By the late 1800s, livery stables from which horses and carriages could be hired, lined the street. Hackney carriages plied the street as much as taxis now do, and carriages makers and horse traders set up shop.
Stables on Orchard Road.
The introduction of the motorcar would see a change of fortunes for those involved in the trade. Some of those involved in the business of horses and carriages would become among the first to trade instead in horsepower, leading to the area retaining its place as a hub as the private transportation business evolved. New entrants to the business, with a greater capacity to respond to shifting demands, soon dominated the scene, with names such as Cycle and Carriage and C F F Wearne (later Wearne Brothers) — now household names in the trade, setting up shop in the area in the early 1900s. By the end of the second decade of the twentieth century, at least a dozen car dealerships had been established in the area close to the entrance to Government House — something I touched on during the Age of Locomotion tour that I recently conducted as part of a series of four historical tours of Orchard Road for Design Orchard’s “The Non Season”.
The “motor” end of Orchard Road, a hundred years apart.
C F F Wearne and Co, one of many success stories associated with the motoring trade, was founded by two Western Australian brothers Charles Frederick Foster Wearne and his brother Theodore James Benjamin (T J B or Theo). The two had come across to Singapore in 1892 and worked their way up from being apprentices at the New Harbour Dock Company to qualify as marine engineers. In 1906, with a startup capital of 700 Straits dollars that Theo provided, C F F Wearne and Co was established as a motor garage in Theo’s brother-in-law’s coach house. This was a time when there were just a handful of cars on the island. In a matter of months, C F F Wearne and Co moved into two shophouse units in Orchard Road. Having secured the agency for Oldsmobiles, the company would expand its portfolio to include makes such as Morris, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Ford and in no time, established themselves as a main player in the business with C F F Wearne and Co becoming Wearne Brothers.
The 1910 built C F F Wearne Garage
By 1924, Wearne Brothers would be producing car bodies locally for assembly to Ford car chassis shipped to Singapore by Ford Canada for the local market. A small assembly plant was established at Penang Lane to handle the work. To avoid any conflict of interests between the Ford agency and other agencies under the Wearne Brothers umbrella, a subsidiary, Malayan Motors, was set up the same year acting as agents for agents for Armstrong-Siddley, Morris, Sunbeam, Packard, Rolls-Royce, Essex, Erksine and Standard motorcars. Malayan Motors operated out of the 1910 constructed C F F Wearnes’ garage, which stood on the site of the 1927 built Malayan Motors showroom at 14-20 Orchard Road. The 1927 building does in fact have the 1910 building appended to it, having been built in front of the older structure. This is quite evident from the difference in floor levels of the older back section and newer front section of the former showroom.
The difference in floor levels between the old and new sections of the building.
Wearne Brothers, which established the first local airline to operate out of Singapore in 1937, Wearnes Air Services (Charles Wearne was also a great aviation enthusiast), would be greatly affected by the war. War not only disrupted Wearnes Air Services operations just as it was about to see returns on the investment and Wearnes’ other businesses operations, war would affect the Wearne brothers in a very personal way. Whilst Charles and Theo made it out of the very last shipping convoy to leave Singapore just a few days before the inglorious Fall of Singapore, two of Charles’ sons would become Prisoners of War. Charles also passed on at the age of 71 in Mandurah, Western Australia, a year before the war ended.
Malayan Motors made its last sale in the showroom in August 1980, after which the company consolidated it operations at its Leng Kee Road branch. The showroom was renovated in 1988 and used by the Singapore Manufacturers’ Association as SMA House and from 2002 to 2020, the building was used by the private school Management Development Institute of Singapore or MDIS.
For those whose connection with Singapore’s far north go back to the 20th century, the road to the causeway was one littered with an interesting range of sights. One such sight that would certainly have caught the eye, was that of KD Malaya, a camp from which Malaysia’s navy – Tentera Laut DiRaja Malaysia (TLDM) or Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) had its fleet based at until 1979, and which was used as a TLDM training facility right until 1997.
KD Malaya from Admiralty Road West – the layout of the buildings gave an appearance of the bow of a huge ship.
The centrepiece of the base was it large parade ground, beyond which an administrative building and two barrack buildings took on the appearance of the bow of a huge ship with the camp’s flagstaff seemingly a foremast. This was quite a remarkable sight, as one came around an area of Admiralty Road West that contained Hawkins Road refugee camp and View Road Hospital (the area was featured in Secrets in the Hood Episode 5).
The former KD Malaya, seen in 2020 after Admiralty West Prison vacated it.
The wondrous sight of the former KD Malaya is now one has quite sadly been lost to the frenzy of redevelopment has now reached Singapore’s once sleepy north, with the Woodlands North Coast development beginning to take shape. While the camp’s streamline moderne inspired former administration block may have been kept for posterity, the two barrack buildings that contributed to the sight has since been demolished. Along with that, the parade square, which had provided the setback to take the wonderful view in, has also been consigned to history. This breaking of a link with our shared history with Malaysia, through the removal of a significant physical reminder of it seems especially ironic with the development nearby of a new link to Malaysia through the Rapid Transit System.
Only the administration block remains today (with a granite-faced staircase leading up to it).
I shall miss the sight of the former KD Malaya, with which I have been familiar with since my childhood. Together with the wonderful spaces and landmarks in and around it, it has provided great joy and comfort, especially with much of the rest of a Singapore being transformed in a way made it hard to identify with. While KD Malaya’s administration block is being kept, my fear is that it becomes just another building in a space overcrowded with a clutter of structures of a brave new world – as seems the case many other developments in which heritage structures are present. An example is the transformation of the joyously green space around old Admiralty House into the monstrous Bukit Canberra development into which a ridiculous amount of concrete has been poured in and around which a clutter of structures has conspired to reduce the presence of the stately arts and crafts movement inspired old Admiralty House.
A road is being built around the site.
There is also the matter of KD Malaya’s gateposts, which will have to be relocated. Whatever happens to it and wherever it will eventually be re-sited, my hope is that it doesn’t go the way of the old National Library’s gateposts. Originally left in situ to mark the site of a much loved Singaporean building, the gateposts have since suffered the indignity of being displaced and put in a position in which it has become …. just another part of the scene.
KD Malaya’s old gate.
The road to perdition. Work on the Rapid Transit System is taking place, which will cross over that body of water that is seen to Johor Bahru.
Will the former Rimau Offices / View Road Hospital (and its unusual above ground “bomb-proof” office) be the next to go?
Perched on an elevation right across from the dockyard gates, the attractive building that housed Aggie Weston’s Royal Sailors’ Rest stood as out as one of the more noticeable structures in the huge naval base in Sembawang. Designed by preeminent architectural firm Swan and Maclaren and completed in 1963, the Royal Sailors’ Rest featured 50 cabins, a restaurant, games rooms, tennis courts and a swimming pool. Established by a Royal Navy and Royal Marines charity established by Dame Agnes “Aggie” Weston whose history goes back to 1876, the sailors’ rest house was the very first to be established outside of the United Kingdom.
The former Aggie Weston’s
Endowed with a complete set of facilities to meet the needs of Royal Navy personnel, especially those coming in with the fleet being put up at nearby HMS Terror, the life of the first overseas Aggie Weston’s would close in a matter of eight years.
The Royal Sailors’ Rest opening to great fanfare in 1963
The construction of the sailors’ rest came as part of a modernisation programme for the naval base initiated in the early 1960s with a view to the continued future use of the base. Singapore, along with Aden, had been identified as important bases to be retained by the Harold Macmillan led Conservative government then in power in the UK. This came even as Britain’s development of amphibious task forces minimised the need for overseas bases. The policy was however reversed in a matter of years by the Labour government led by Sir Harold Wilson which came into power in 1964. A defence white paper published in 1966 would lead to the eventual withdrawal of British forces based in Singapore at the end of October 1971, and this meant that the first overseas Aggie Weston’s would operate for a period of only eight years.
All was however not lost for the beautifully constructed recreational complex. With the pullout, a small Australian, New Zealand and UK joint force under the ANZUK pact was established in Singapore from which both the UK and the Australians would withdraw from, resulting with the deployment of the New Zealand Defence Forces as the sole foreign force stationed in Singapore to supplement its defence needs from 1975. New Zealand NZForSEA (New Zealand Force South Easr Asia) was formed in 1974 to take on this role and the former Aggie Weston’s would find use again as Fernleaf Centre, which would be used as a recreational space, a transit centre and as quarters for unmarried members of the force. As Fernleaf Centre, the former sailors’ rest would see good use for some fifteen more years until the departure of NZForSEA in 1989. During this time, the centre featured a library that boasted of some 20,000 books.
Fernleaf Centre as a transit centre.
Subsequent to the withdrawal, the former sailors’ rest found use BY CDans (Civil Defence Association for National Servicemen) as its Sembawang Clubhouse, which morphed into the HomeTeamNS Sembawang, from 2000 until the brand new HomeTeamNS Khatib clubhouse was completed in June 2020.
Today, the site remains empty and its eventual fate remains uncertain. One can however look into the crystal ball that is the Master Plan, which has the site identified as a future housing site, possibly for high-rise public housing with a plot ratio of 3.5. Whatever it is, my hope is that the building, a landmark in Sembawang and a repository of many memories and of the area’s history since 1963, is kept.
What the Master Plan says about the future of the site.
The three blocks that make up the former Changi Hospital are probably some of the most misunderstood buildings in Singapore. Much has been speculated about them and how they were used during the Second World War, leading to the buildings having gained a reputation for something that they are not.
A tour of the former hospital in 2017.
Just what role did two of the hospital’s original blocks play? Why were they built in Changi? How were they part of the overall strategy for the defence of Britain’s possessions in the Far East? What happened in them during the war? These are questions that I hope to answer during a specially arranged visit that will permit us to have a look at the buildings behind the security fence for a tour that I will be conducting in conjunction with Changi Chapel and Museum’s (CCM) programme being organised to mark the 80th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore.
Block 24. What role did it originally play?
Two sessions of the tour will be conducted on 19 Feb 2022, which will begin with a docent-led tour of CCM through which will provide participants with a better understanding of Changi as a military site, how it became associated with captivity – both military and civilian, and provide a deeper appreciation of the experience of the civilian and military internees. Following the docent-led tour at CCM, participants will travel by coach to the site of the former Changi Hospital where my section of the tour will begin.
In a hospital ward with a view that will change the perspective of what the hospital was and what it meant.
Registration for the tour will begin at 10 am on 10 February 2022. Please visit https://ccm1-och22.peatix.com/ for more information, tour times and to register. Information can also be found on the CCM website. I will also be doing two tours of the former Tanglin Barracks (Dempsey Hill) to explore its connections with the Second World War, one on 12 February and another on 5 March 2022, both from 9am to 10.30am (more at this link).
I have always enjoyed a visit to one of the few remaining standalone post offices of old, and make it a point to use one whenever I am able to. Quite unlike those of the new age, which tend to be tucked away in a hard-to-get-to location in the upper floors of a shopping mall or a community centre, they are much more accessible and conveniently position, with a small car park that makes running into one much less of a complicated task.
It was therefore sad to hear that one such post office — the Alexandra Post Office, whose services I used as recently as the 3rd of November, may soon be another one of to many things of the past. A joint HDB and SLA announcement issued this afternoon, has it that it is being acquired to permit public housing to be built on the narrow section of land between Alexandra Road and Prince Charles Crescent that the Post Office sits on.
Alexandra Post Office, as it was on 3 Nov 2021.
Built as Alexandra Road Post Office as part of a 5-year-plan launched in 1956 to develop a postal service that was “second to none” through the construction of some 22 new post offices and by improving efficiency and economy in operations, the post office was opened on 24 August 1957 by then Minister for Communications and Works, Mr Francis Thomas.
The post office now occupies a small section on the ground floor of the 1957 building, which at its opening, held the second largest postal delivery and distribution centre after the General Post Office.
Designed with a modern façade by architectural firm Chung and Wong — whose claim to fame were well-known buildings such as the Haw Par House of Jade at Nassim Road and the Tiger Balm Clock Tower Building at Selegie Road and Short Street and a firm at which Haw Par Villa’s actual villa’s architect, Ho Kwong Yew, had a stint in — the post office featured living quarters for its postmaster and family. It was also constructed to act as a postal distribution centre that was second in size to the General Post Office. The post office at its opening had a staff of 17 postmen, 2 clerks and was headed by postmaster Mr Horbex Singh.
Pat’s Schoolhouse, has occupied a larger portion of the building since 2008. One of the features of the building are the ventilation blocks that are reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s designed buildings.
With the push to move postmasters out of their co-located post office quarters in the 1970s, and with the decline in demand for postal services through the use of email and online communications, standalone post offices such as Alexandra Post Office have seen the space required for postal services greatly reduced. As such the few that are surviving have seen the excess floor area, popular with preschools, being rented out. Alexandra Post Office for example, which was the first to be used by a preschool, has had a greater proportion of its floor area occupied by Pat’s Schoolhouse since 2008.
While the announcement may spell the end for Alexandra Post Office, it will not be the last of the post offices of a time forgotten. Several post offices or old, or at least the buildings that housed them are still around. It would nice to at least see some of them kept to recall how these post offices and their postmasters provided an important service in the many rural communities scattered across the island.
Like it or loathe it, Golden Mile Complex (GMC) will remain a fixture in Singapore’s urban landscape, with its main building having been gazetted for conservation. Celebrated as an architectural icon of Singapore’s post-independence era by the architectural and heritage communities, the worth of the aging and decaying modernist mixed-use landmark has divided opinion with a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) having comparing the sixteen-storey building to a “vertical slum”, calling it “a terrible eyesore and a national disgrace” during a parliamentary debate in 2006.
Woh Hup Complex in the 1980s (URA Photograph)
While there is little doubt of that the unsightly nature of the extensions and deterioration of the building, prompting the remarks made by the NMP, as well as the fact that its quality as a social space to Singaporeans has somewhat diminished over the years, GMC does have a certain charm and architectural appeal – which is best appreciated internally on its upper floors. Completed in 1973/74 as Woh Hup Complex, GMC was developed as part of the then Urban Redevelopment Department’s first batch of redevelopment sites sold in 1967 to private developers under its “Sales of Sites” programme. Built on parcel no. 9, one of four sites along the so-called Golden Mile, the Design Partnership (now DP Architects) designed complex was a bold experiment in design. Envisaged as a megastructure – a self-contained vertical high-density city within a city, GMC featured a three-storey shopping centre above which offices and apartments were laid out in what was then quite a bold and innovative manner. with its residential units arranged as “stepped terraces” to maximise the views in both the horizontal and vertical sense.
Overgrowth? The best view of the stepped terraces is from the end Crawford Street end. This view will however will be lost should there be the development of an up to thirty-storey block at this end based on the conservation proposal.
One of the draws of GMC’s shopping centre today is the array of Thai food and products on offer. A gateway for express coaches to Malaysia and southern Thailand from the time it opened as Golden Mile Shopping Centre in 1972, it became a point of entry for Thai construction workers and traders coming in, and from the 1980s it started to take on a Siamese flavour with shops and restaurants catering to sojourners and workers from the Land of Smiles. Even today, the shopping centre has not discarded its Thai flavour with a large Thai supermarket, and restaurants and businesses such as hairdressers etc. catering to our friends from Thailand. It isn’t so much in what has become known as “Little Thailand”, where the decay of time and neglect in the building can largely be seen and which most will see, that one gets the true sense of what GMC has to offer from an aesthetic and architectural viewpoint, but on its hard to access upper levels. And, for this, it is probably best to let the images that follow to do the talking.
Together with 9 other bloggers and thanks to Tigerair Philippines and the Philippine Department of Tourism, I found myself on a dream trip to Boracay in July 2013. Read about the fantastic experience I had at Boracay Island Escapade or on my blog.
Courtesy of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), I had the opportunity to have a 4 day adventure in Hong Kong with 9 other bloggers. To read our collective Hong Kong Travel Blog entries, please click on the icon below:
The Long and Winding Road 