Singapore seems to have had quite a number of burial sites laid out across swampy grounds. Examples include the since drained old Malay cemetery at Kampong Gelam on the banks of the Rochor River, the burial grounds that were found at Kallang, and the long exhumed burial grounds at former Kampong Batu Puteh. One swampy burial site, perhaps the last in Singapore, can be found off Kranji Road. More recently referred to as the Wak Selat cemetery, it occupies a site that was close to the old Malayan Railway (MR or KTM) line and just by the MR’s old Kranji Gate hut, taking this name from a village, Kampong Wak Selat, that also seems to have acquired the name in fairly recent times.
While the name “Wak Selat” may suggest a village founded by Javanese settlers, the use of the name in this case can be attributed to a headman of non-Javanese origins. The so-called Kampong Wak Selat, was really part of a larger Kampong Kranji — that is until at least the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the clearance of much of the larger village left the part of the village close to the road named “Jalan Wak Selat” isolated.
An explanation for the name of the road can be found in an account provided by a former village headman, Mydeen Kutty Mydeen. In the account, Mr Mydeen described how five roads in Kampong Kranji were named by him in the late 1950s during the days of the Lim Yew Hock administration. In the case of Jalan Wak Selat, it was a reference to an elderly man who was known to reside in the area of the road, whom Mr Mydeen had never seen but had heard about and whom I guess we can call the “old uncle of the strait” (“Wak” is a term used in Java for an uncle who is an older than one’s father, whereas “Selat” means strait in Malay).
Mr Mydeen also named Jalan Lam Huat and Jalan Chuan Seng both of which were names of pineapple canning factories served by the respective roads, Jalan Jambatan Lama after an old bridge, and Jalan Surau after a surau (Muslim prayer hall). The pineapple factories, which had been a feature in the area since the 1930s (Lam Huat was already well established in Kranji when Chuan Soon moved from Upper Serangoon Road in 1936), also meant that the village attracted Chinese settlers. A Chinese school, Tao Khoon School, operated in the area from the 1950s until 1979. The local pineapple canners, along with several others in the trade, were also responsible for establishing the Metal Box factory to support their canning needs. The factory was a well-known landmark at the end of Woodlands Road from the 1950s until 1992 and something that those who travelled up Woodlands Road upcountry during the period would not have missed.
The cemetery, much like the pineapple factories, also seems to have been in existence since the 1930s as maps from the time show. One part of this cemetery, was cleared during an exhumation exercise in 1993 to allow for road widening. This has left behind less than 40 graves out of more than a hundred. With development in the area picking up pace, it will not be long before what remains of the old cemetery, much like the village that it once served, becomes a distant memory.
Underneath the veneer of modernity that Singapore wears, is an island, a port and a city-state that celebrates its many cultural and religious influences. Among these influences are ones brought in by the Portuguese through the Portuguese Mission, which Portuguese naval surgeon and an early immigrant to Singapore Dr Jose d’Almeida, was instrumental in bringing in. The mission eventually established St Joseph’s Church in Victoria Street in 1853. The church that stands today is one that was rebuilt in 1912. Long administered by the Portuguese Diocese of Macau, it was transferred to the Archdiocese of Singapore in 1981, although appointments continued to be made by the Bishop of Macau up until 1999. The church is where the religious traditions brought in by the mission have been kept very much alive, one of which is its annual Good Friday service, which features a candlelight procession through its grounds.
Good Friday at the Portuguese Church
The procession, which has not been seen at the church for six long years (the church was closed from August 2017 to June 2022 for refurbishment and restoration), has always attracted a large crowd of worshippers, with many spilling out onto the grounds of the church and even onto the Queen Street behind the church, transforming the area into a sea of candlelight. While the crowds have dwindled over the years, the procession is still quite a spectacle and adds much colour and life to the Bras Basah.Bugis precinct.
Toa Payoh, the first satellite town that the Housing and Development Board planned in full, was recently in the news, having been the subject of a refreshed National Heritage Board (NHB) heritage trail. As part of the NHB’s efforts to update the trial, two markers have been added: one is sited at Toa Payoh’s now famous dragon playground, and the other at the so-called VIP block, Block 53.
The dragon playground from the since demolished Block 28.
Block 53 is a block that I have had an association with, having moved to it when it was newly completed in 1967 at the age of three and spending nine of my formative years in it before moving out at the end of 1976. As an early Housing and Development Board (HDB) Toa Payoh and Block 53 resident, I got to witness many of Toa Payoh’s many milestones as the town grew and matured. The Toa Payoh that I moved into, felt very much an extension of the villages that many of its early residents had been moved out of. Doors were kept open, neighbours popped in and out or said hello as they walked past; common spaces came alive, especially in the evenings. Even if it may have been against HDB rules, many reared chickens and chickens running around was a rather common sight. Chilli, pandan, lime and pomegranate, planted in pots or in the common spaces behind ground floor flats were also commonly seen. Many residents lived as if they were still living in the kampungs that they had moved away from.
When Toa Payoh was a “flowery” place. Before the roads became Lorongs, they were named Jalan Bunga XXXX.
While Toa Payoh in its reincarnation as a HDB town, was beginning to shed its long-held reputation as the “Chicago of Singapore”, criminal activity continued to plague the town. An incident that I clearly remember, involved one of Singapore’s most wanted persons who went by the nickname “Hun Cher”, who was being hunted down by the police for a series of daring armed robberies. Having been tricked into renting a flat at Lorong 5 — not far from where I lived, Hun Cher chose to take his own life during his stand-off with the police.
Block 64, where Hun Cher took his own life early one July morning in 1970.
Toa Payoh’s high profile crime cases, did little to get in the way of the becoming the HDB’s model town and a showpiece for Singapore’s public housing success story. Visiting dignitaries were often brought to Toa Payoh to be impressed at how well Singapore had done on its own in its public housing programme; to be shown that Singapore could do it. A purpose-built VIP block, Block 53, had been put up. Uniquely designed with a “Y” shaped planform, the block featured an open-air viewing deck on its roof that offered a panoramic view of Toa Payoh and its surroundings.
The Queen at the Viewing Gallery on the roof of Block 53 Toa Payoh
The marvellous playground at Block 53 with Lorong 4, the Lorong 4 market, and Lorong 3 in the background. This offered much greater fun than the rather static and compact dragons that now seem to used as a reference point for the playgrounds of yesteryears (scan of a postcard courtesy of David Jess James – On a Little Street in Singapore).
A string of visiting and local dignitaries were treated to that panoramic view, including the late Queen Elizabeth II during her first visit to Singapore in 1972, several visiting Prime Ministers and President Benjamin Sheares of Singapore. Dignitaries were also taken on pre-arranged visits to flats in the block. Living on the top floor of Block 53 had its privileges when it came to this and the humble three room flat that I lived in with my parents and younger sister was graced by the Queen with Prince Philip and Princess Anne), President and Mrs Sheares and also John Gorton, PM of Australia and Sir William Goode — the last British governor of Singapore and Singapore’s very first Yang di-pertuan Negara (see: Psst … guess who dropped in today?).
A photograph taken during the visit of the Queen to my flat in 1972.
Toa Payoh, a town of many firsts, was where the very first international mass sporting event held in Singapore, the 7th SEAP Games in 1973, had its games village and aquatic sports centre — something that many early residents of Toa Payoh were extremely proud of. The seven national contingents participating in the 7th SEAP Games were housed in 346 four-room flats in four newly constructed point blocks in Toa Payoh Central. The flats would be sold through a ballot fully furnished — the first HDB flats to be sold in this manner. There were also other buildings within the games village that would be repurposed. These included the Games Secretariat offices, which is now Toa Payoh Community Library, and a dining hall, which now houses a supermarket and restaurant.
Did you know … that the “World’s Greatest Footballer” conducted a football workshop at Toa Payoh Stadium in 1974?
Another Toa Payoh milestone, would be the opening of the then Toa Payoh Town Garden (now Toa Payoh Town Park), which featured a lookout tower — the first in a HDB town garden, the prototype dragon playground (which had a metal face) and weeping willow trees lining a pond that could be crossed on stone bridges. The pond, weeping willows and stone bridges, which made Toa Payoh Town Garden a popular destination for outdoor wedding shoots, are still there today, along with the lookout tower (to which access is now restricted). The dragon, has long been removed and is now recalled by what may be thought of as its offspring, some 900 metres down Lorong 6.
The view from the top of the lookout tower.
Climbing the dragon at Toa Payoh Town Garden, 1975.
The prototype dragon playground.
From SIT Toa Payoh to HDB Toa Payoh
While Toa Payoh can be thought of as the HDB’s first planned satellite town, it was actually the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) that cast the die that set off Toa Payoh’s development in the 1950s. The SIT, which was set up initially to carry out town planning and improvement, also took on the task of providing public housing. Among its early public housing projects was the one at Tiong Bahru, which was carried out in the pre-Second World War era. The task that the SIT faced post-Second World War was however much greater when it faced with rapid population growth. It was about this time that SIT began first of all to assert its rights over land ownership. It also embarked on the then rather difficult task of acquiring land for public housing for large scale public housing developments.
What the SIT had in mind for Toa Payoh was an estate to house 65,000 people. SIT did in fact build flats in the Kim Keat Road area (Temple Estate) which were completed in 1954. The SIT’s project however made slow progress for several reasons, chief of which was the reluctance of villagers and squatters to vacate land that was earmarked for the future estate. In 1955, an estimated 21,000 people were still occupying uncleared parts of the intended estate, living in scattering of attap and zinc-roofed houses. The area’s cottage industries, chicken and pig farms and vegetable farms, a source of employment for pre-HDB Toa Payoh’s residents, were still operating. The were also other sources of blue-collar work in and around Toa Payoh, and also in chicken and pig rearing and other forms of farming. The SIT was quite toothless when it came to exerting authority. This, coupled with villagers and squatters refusing to budge, made the task of land acquisition slow and rather painful. Hardly any progress was made by the time the SIT had firmed its plans up for Toa Payoh in 1958 and by 1960, flats housing only 4,000 were built — far short of the 65,000 figure that the SIT had in mind.
1960 was of course quite a significant year in Singapore’s public housing journey. It was the year when the SIT was disbanded and the HDB came into being. The HDB made even more ambitious plans for Toa Payoh and in 1961, announced that it intended to tackle Singapore’s housing crisis with an estate in Toa Payoh that was to cover over 600 acres (243 ha) and house 200,000 — a tenth of Singapore’s population! Like the SIT, the HDB faced resistance from villagers and squatters. It noted in its 1961 Annual Report that “organised resistance” played a part, which prevented the commencement of clearance and development work on the new town. The HDB was however given greater authority to overcome very similar difficulties that its predecessor had faced. Offers of monetary compensation were more generous, and it also went further by the provision of temporary housing for displaced villagers. Harder methods were also employed where necessary to counter the intimidation that its officers faced from gangsters and various communist influenced groups that were behind the organised opposition to land acquisition. By 1962, most villagers had agreed to take the HDB’s offers up, paving the way for the clearance of land in 1963. Construction on the estate started in 1964 and by October 1966, Toa Payoh’s first 720 flats were put up for balloting.
The HDB spared no effort in making Toa Payoh a planning success story, and a model for future HDB towns. There were also some interesting concepts that the HDB adopted for the new town such as a rather unique traffic system that carried traffic into and out of the new town via flyovers. Roundabouts or road circuses rather than traffic-light controlled junctions were used to manage vehicular flow at the entry points, a system that was actually borrowed from SIT’s plans, which had featured British new town planning ideas. Similar to SIT designed Queenstown, Toa Payoh also featured a neighbourhood system built around neighbourhood centres with a concentration of markets, shops and other amenities, with a main town centre to serve the entire town. Population density would be where Toa Payoh differed from Queenstown, which was built to contain an average of 200 persons per acre. HDB applied the squeeze in Toa Payoh, increasing the planned population density by 2.5 times to 500 persons per acre.
One of the things that the HDB did in Toa Payoh, is retain some key religious sites such as the Seu Teck Sean Tong. The town and its roads were laid out and aligned around these sites. See also “The sunken temple of Toa Payoh“.
Now rarely encountered, puppet performances were once a common sight here in Singapore. Much like street opera performances, the appearance of puppet stages more often than not, coincided with festivals celebrated at Chinese Taoist temples. While such performances may have provided entertainment to the common folk in days before television invaded our homes, they were often put up for religious purposes, with puppets also playing a part in performing rituals and in performances conducted for the pleasure of visiting gods.
Carried over by the Chinese emigrant community, various forms of Chinese puppetry have been seen in Singapore. String (marionette), rod, or glove puppets are mostly used. String puppets, which can best replicate human-like movement and gestures, carry the highest status and are thought to be most sacred amongst the various types of puppets. Belief was that puppets of deities used in rituals were brought to life by the deities they represented and the skills that the puppeteer demonstrated was imparted by the god of string puppets, also the god of theatre — a deity that is most often represented by a marionette. For this reason, string puppeteers were initially Taoist priests, due to their ability to communicate with the gods.
Over time, puppet troupes have taken over the role played by priests, with the eventual secularisation of the practice as a theatre form. Music used in puppetry has also changed, with a move from the use of nanyin music in Hokkien puppetry towards the more folk-like gezai music form that is associated with opera.
These days, all but a handful of puppet troupes keep the tradition alive. One, a Hokkien string puppet troupe known as Geyi, was founded in 2001 by Doreen Tan. Madam Tan, rather interestingly, was English educated and had no background in the traditional Hokkien theatre. Geyi is currently staging performances at the beautifully restored Temple on Phoenix Hill, Hong San See, during the elaborate commemoration of the feast day of its main deity, Guang Ze Zun Wang (广泽尊王) or Kong Teik Chun Ong (in Hokkien). The deity is widely worshipped in Lam Ann, the origins of the temple’s founders. The festival celebrations run until 16 March 2023.
The troupe during the banxian (impersonating the immortals) ritual.
More photographs taken during the Guang Ze Zun Wang festival at Hong San See:
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.
Fort Canning Hill, aka Bukit Larangan or Forbidden Hill, the place of many a schoolboy adventure for me, has always been a place of discovery and rediscovery for me, as well as a space that provides an escape from the urban world. An abode of the ancient kings of Singapura — the spirits of whom are said to still roam the hill, the hill is one steeped as much in history, as it is surrounded by mystery.
Fort Canning Hill, the Forbidden Hill is a place that has long been cloaked with an air of mystery.
The mystery of the place, was quite evident when the British first established their presence in Singapore in 1819. Col William Farquhar’s attempt to ascend the strategically positioned elevation, which commanded a view of the plain across which the settlement and Singapore River, was met with resistance by the followers of Temenggong Abdul Rahman who claimed that the sounds of gongs and drums and the shouts of hundreds of men could be heard, even if all that was present then on the hill were only the reminders of a long lost 14th century kingdom. The claim did not deter Farquhar from making his ascent, nor his colleagues in the East India Company, who would exploit the hill to place the seat of colonial rule in Singapore, as an experimental botanical garden, for the first Christian spaces for the dead, and as an artillery fort and barracks, for fresh water supply to the fast developing municipality and as a strategic military command bunker.
It has long been a place of escape for me.
Much of that history, and mystery, is now wonderfully captured in the new Fort Canning Heritage Gallery — and in a book “Fort Canning Park: Heritage and Gardens” that was launched in conjunction with the gallery’s opening yesterday on 26 August 2022. The gallery is housed in a 1920s barrack block now known as Fort Canning Centre, that has seen use most recently as a staging point for the Bicentennial Experience and as the short-lived private museum, Singapore Pinacothèque de Paris. The centre, which also housed the “world’s largest squash centre” from the 1977 to 1987 during the height of the squash rackets craze in Singapore, sits quite grandly atop the slope we know today as Fort Canning Green and forms a magnificent backdrop to the many events that the former cemetery grounds now plays host to.
Fort Canning Centre, a 1920s barrack block in which the newly opened Fort Canning Heritage Gallery is housed.
Divided into five zones, the gallery provides an introduction to the hill, and through four themed zones, places focus on a particular aspect of the role that the hill has played through its own and also more broadly, Singapore’s history. The stories, told succinctly through information panels, archaeological artefacts excavated from the hill and interactive digital stations, provide just enough information to the visitor to provide an appreciation of the hill history and its heritage. There is also a condensed version of the “From Singapore to Singaporean: The Bicentennial Experience” video that plays in a mini-theatrette within the gallery.
Minister of National Development, Mr Desmond Lee, opening the new Fort Canning Heritage Gallery.
Also opened with the new gallery was an enhanced Spice Garden, which now extends to the 2019 pedestrianised section of Fort Canning Rise and a pedestrian ramp and underpass (that once led to the former car park at the rear of the old National Library). The pedestrian ramp and underpass now features the new Spice Gallery, which I thought was a wonderful and meaningful way to use a space that serves little other practical use today. The Spice Gallery, made possible by the generous support of Nomanbhoy and Sons Pte Ltd — a spice trader with over a hundred years of history, provides an appreciation of the significance of the spice trade to modern Singapore’s early development as a trading hub and also the role that Fort Canning Hill played in Singapore’s early spice plantations.
The newly opened Spice Gallery at the enhanced Spice Garden occupies a former pedestrian ramp and underpass.
A book, “Fort Canning Park: Heritage and Gardens”, authored by Dr Chng Mun Whye and Ms Sara-Ann Ang, which highlights the park’s rich heritage, was also launched together with the opening. This is available for sale Gardens Shop at various locations around the Singapore Botanic Gardens or online at https://botanicgardensshop.sg at SGD 29.90.
A book, “Fort Canning Park: Heritage and Gardens” was launched together with the opening.
Along with the permanent exhibition two galleries, there is also a “Kaleidoscope in Clay (I)” exhibition that features exhibits showcasing 5,000 years of Chinese ceramic history from 26 August to 11 September 2022 at The Gallery@L3, Fort Canning Centre. Also running is the 3rd edition of Festival at the Fort being held in conjunction with the opening and Singapore Night Festival, the programmes of which include movie screenings at Fort Canning Green, guided tours and children’s activities. The festival runs from 26 August to 4 September 2022 and more information can be found at https://www.nparks.gov.sg/activities/events-and-workshops/2022/8/festival-at-the-fort-2022.
Kaleidoscope in Clay (I) at Gallery@L3, Fort Canning Centre.
Fort Canning Heritage Gallery is opened daily from 10 am to 6 pm (expect for the last Monday of each month), while the Spice Gallery is opened from 7 am to 7 pm daily. Entry to both galleries is free to the public.
Photographs of Fort Canning Heritage Gallery during the opening on 26 August 2022.
Fort Canning Centre, various views
Fort Canning Spice Gallery / enhanced Spice Garden
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.
After an absence of two years, the Singapore Night Festival is back! Running from 19 to 27 August, the 13th edition of festival is not just a celebration of the Bras Basah.Bugis (BBB) precinct’s heritage, but also a celebration of life being returned to normalcy after a pause of more than two years. Over 55 events and installations will feature over the nine-day festival period, which in the words of Festival Director David Chew, has gone “hyperlocal” in zooming in on the stories of the precinct and its people, and in celebrating local artists.
More on the night festival can be found at https://www.nightfestival.gov.sg and an overview of the installations and locations. In addition to this, there will also be programmes running at the National Archives of Singapore at No 1 Canning Rise on which a projection mapping, Midnight Show at Capitol, will feature. The projection, by visual artist MOJOKO, will highlight Singapore’s cinemas of the past through a remix of images from the collections of the National Archives of Singapore and National Library in what will be a contemporary twist to the classic movie posters that once adorned the many cinema façades of the precinct. The programmes include talks and performances. I will also be conducting tours, School Bells and Hallways: Memories of Former School Buildings which unfortunately have already been sold out. More information on the programmes at the National Archives of Singapore can be found at: https://curiocity.nlb.gov.sg/events/curiocity-encounters-snf/programmes.
Some photographs from a media preview of Singapore Night Festival 2022:
Fēcundus | SMU Green
We can no longer be strangers after this | near Banyan Tree @ National Museum of Singapore
Palimpsest | Armenian Street
The Melting Pot | Stamford Clock Tower
Paddy Fields | Stamford Walkway
Cathay Hotel | Cathay Green
Stories from Forbidden Hill | National Museum of Singapore
An Ocean without the Anchor | Raffles City
TERRARIUM | National Design Centre
Discoloo Centre | Waterloo Centre
Nhawfal Juma’at, the artist behind NOCTURNE : Conversations with Waterloo | Waterloo Centre
Seemingly uninteresting and rather unexciting, the cluster of buildings that were used by the Police Coast Guard (PCG) to house their headquarters from 1970 to 2006, now hide an interesting secret. Repurposed as the National Youth Sports Institute (NYSI), the buildings have not only found a new life, but have been repurposed with a minimum of intervention and have retained much of the fabric of its past.
NYSI at Kallang, occupies a space that was used as a flying boat reception and maintenance facility and later by the PCG as its headquarters.
The former base, which was carved out of the former Kallang Airport’s flying boat reception and maintenance facilities (its ramp/slipway is still there, except it is part of the National Cadet Corp (Sea) facility next to NYSI), was turned into a base for what was then the Marine Police in 1970 at the cost of S$1 million. Having been based at the congested Singapore River by what is now the Asian Civilisations Museum, a new base with a maintenance facility was much needed to permit enable a swifter repair turnaround time for its boats, improve response and also accommodate the Marine Police’s expanding fleet.
A piece from its days as the flying boat facility.
Amongst the structures that were put up during the development of the Kallang Marine Poilce HQ, was a two storey building that served as its nerve centre, which is the same building that NYSI has operated out of since November 2015. The building and an annex, which once housed offices, interrogation rooms, an armoury and even a lock-up, is now home to gyms, sports laboratories, accommodation, recovery rooms counselling rooms, and even chill out spaces. While that may have been expected, what is unexpected is the manner in which the building has been redone in a way that not only allows it to keep many of its reminders of its days as a Marine Police base, but also with little need for light and ventilation other than that which occurs naturally. This rather intelligent, sustainable, no-frills and rather affordable approach is a breath of fresh air and should really be a model for many of our developments in which old spaces and building are repurposed. Most projects, quite unfortunately, have gone down the path of being flamboyant and gimmicky.
Decently exposed.
The Marine Police, morphed into the Police Coast Guard in 1993 and vacated the base in 2006 due to the intended closing up of Marina Bay through the construction of the Marina Barrage. It is now based in Pulau Brani.
A walk around NYSI Kallang
Chin-up bars – a reminder of the past.
Inside the old electrical distribution box.
The former arms clearing station.
Recalling the armoury.
Exposing the dividing line between the main building and an annex.
A breath of fresh air, the non-air-conditioned gym.
Notice the manhole in the gym flooring (previously a wet space).
A performance lab.
Heaters to simulate hot dry conditions.
An “Endless Pool” for swimmers.
Another reminder of the past.
Maximising natural ventilation.
Dorms – a curtain separates the male and female sections.
Puppet shows once made appearances around Taoist temples scattered all across Singapore. Like the Chinese street opera and the more modern getai performances, they were usually put up for the pleasure of visiting Taoist deities on their earthly sojourns, or for hungry ghosts who as belief would have it, roam the earth when the gates of the underworld are opened during the Chinese seventh month. Puppet shows also found great appeal with the common, especially amongst the young ones. These days however, the distractions of the modern world hold sway and the appeal of tradition seems to have waned. Just a handful of troupes still perform around today leaving supporting craftsmen such as Mr Leong Fong Wah, whose lifetime’s work has been in painting and putting together puppet stages, a dying breed.
A typical Chinese puppet stage is really an assembly of pieces of plywood on which colourful decorations and backdrops are painted on one side and reinforced on the other. All it takes is a few weeks to add the decorative work before a stage can be put together. This quick turnaround time, the lack of a customer base, and the fact that a stage can be used and reused for as long as ten years, does mean that there is little in terms work in the area for the business that Mr Leong runs, Leong Shin Wah Art Studio. Having been started in the 1940s by Mr Leong’s father, whose name the business is identified with, the workshop must have been involved in putting together a countless number of stages. With nothing in way of puppet show stage orders in sight beyond an order that Mr Leong is currently in the process of fulfilling, this last stage that he is building may be one of the last, if not the last, traditional puppet show stages being made not just at Mr Leong’s workshop, but also in Singapore.
A typical traditional puppet show stage set up:
A puppet stage set up at Telok Ayer Street.
The stage set up also hides puppeteers and musicians behind a backdrop and other decorated plywood panels.
Deprived of the long beach that it took its name from, and with its one-time star attraction Haw Par Villa having been set on a course for hell, there seems little to draw the visitor to Pasir Panjang — that is except for the vegetable wholesale centre that has become synonymous with it, Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre. The huge centre, which is spread over a 15.2 ha site that was reclaimed from the sea, comes alive in the dark of night and draws vegetable, fruits and dried goods traders to it, along with others in search of a bargain.
Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre is Singapore’s main vegetable, fruit and dried goods distribution centre.
Developed by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and opened in 1983, Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre was built to consolidate vegetable, fruits and dried goods wholesalers from the urban centre who were being displaced by urban redevelopment and the river clean-up effort, the centre was initially populated by 90 wholesalers from Clyde Terrace and Maxwell Road markets, plus over 350 from the Upper Circular Road / Carpenter Street and the Tew Chew Street / Chin Hin Street area. The centre features four sections with 9 out of its 26 blocks dedicated to fruits, another 8 blocks in its vegetable section, 4 blocks housing cold rooms and another 5 blocks for dried goods. With several hundred cold and chilled stores, it is quite literally a cool place to chill out at!
Tew Chew Street, which was one of the wholesale centres around Singapore. It was one of the places where imported vegetables from Cameron Highlands found buyers until 1983/84.
An opportunity not just to chill out, but also learn more about the centre and some of the people whose nocturnal existence puts fresh fruits and vegetables on the shelves now presents itself with the My Community Festival 2022. Among its offerings is a tour of Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre that is led by guide Ms Pamela Loh, who takes participants on an interesting walk through cold stores, a fruit distributor and through the especially large vegetable section — a hive of activity at the midnight hour six days a week, whether it is the seventh month or not. Besides an “insider” view of the wholesale centre, the opportunity to meet and learn about the lives of some of the people who run businesses at the centre, is a wonderful bonus.
Ms Pamela Loh leading a group at the cold room section.
Organised by My Community, My Community Festival runs from 5 to 21 August 2022. On offer is a host of unique experiences including this tour to Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre. There are also after dark tours to seafood wholesale centres at Jurong and Senoko Fishery Ports. For more information on the festival, please visit https://mycommunityfestival.sg/.
Chilling out at the cold room section where temperatures are maintained at 4 degrees C for vegetables.
The inside of a cold room.
At the fruits section, where a treat awaits …
Huge and juicy chilled US cherries being offered for sale at KSY, a fruit distributor – a must buy!
Mrs Fong, who runs a vegetable wholesale stall with her husband.
Fresh winter bamboo shoots!
Giant cauliflower.
Giant pandan leaves.
The centre’s vegetable section comes alive at night.
Believe it or not, the northern coast of Singapore once played host to a large fleet of fishing vessels. The fleet’s port of call was at old Kangkar Villlage down the Serangoon River, located right at the end of Upper Serangoon Road. The fleet was moved to Punggol Fishery Port when that was set up in the 1980s to move the fleet and consolidate the fish wholesalers of Kangkar and also Bedok. At the point of its move in 1984, Kangkar accommodated a fleet of 90 fishing boats and 16 fish wholesalers. Another move was made in 1997 to Senoko Fishery Port, which will itself close in 2023, after which all fish wholesale activity will be consolidated at Jurong Fishery Port. The move, which in tiny Singapore terms seems to a place a world away, will bring to a close the northern coast’s longtime connection with the fishing and the fish wholesale business.
The entrance to the port.
The floor of the wholesale market at Senoko Fishery Port.
The link that it has with old Kangkar does mean that Senoko has become home to a tightly-knit community of fish wholesalers who are of Teochew origin. Several of Senoko’s businesses have their roots in Kangkar’s fishing fleet operators whose boats would spent 3 to 4 days fishing in the waters close to Horsburgh Lighthouse (on the island of Pedra Branca). Over the years, close ties have been forged between the businesses which span several generations and what that does mean is that in Senoko there is a spirit of cooperation rather than competition. The closure of Senoko will thus not only bring a huge dose of sadness to its business operators but surely bring to the end that sense of community and that “kampung spirit” that is quite clearly evident in Senoko.
While the atmosphere in Senoko, which supplies a small portion (some 4% in 2020) of Singapore’s chilled seafood imports, certainly does come anywhere close to Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market — with which it has often been compared to, visiting it is a must due to its impending closure. As with Tsukiji, visits have to be made at an ungodly hour, in the wee hours of the morning. That is when its offerings, which are now imported mainly from Malaysia and other parts of Asia, come in and when the regular buyers come to obtain their supplies. There may also an opportunity to purchase seafood at wholesale prices, although one has to be prepared to buy in larger quantities with some exceptions, and be armed with an ice-box. While the port may be accessible to the public (you will need you NRIC and it is opened from 2 to 6 am except for Monday mornings), getting to Senoko may proof difficult. There is however an opportunity that presents itself for a guided visit during the My Community Festival. Organised by My Community, the annual festival runs from 5 to 21 August 2022 and offers programmes that provide a host of unique experiences — including visits to both Jurong and Senoko Fishery Ports and also Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre (for vegetables).
Lian Yak Fish Merchant, is the oldest of the businesses. It started business way back in 1955 and operated a fleet of fishing vessels out of Kangkar Village.
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.
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.
The pace of development in the north of Singapore, a part of the island of which I have some wonderful childhood memories of, seems to be quickening. The recent demolition of all but one of the blocks of KD Malaya and the loss of its parade square has left the section of the old naval base closest to the causeway almost unrecognisable. Nearby, former residents of another marker of memory, the former “Torpedo Lines” at Khalsa Crescent — most recently a prison, returned to say goodbye and have their memories collected ahead of its probable eventual demolition in an event organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) last week. A little further east, it has already been some time since the loss of part of the elevation that played host to a UNHCR refugee camp for “Boat People” fleeing South Vietnam. The same elevation was also home to the former View Road Hospital, a branch of Woodbridge Hospital (now Institute of Mental Health), which stood at its top. The building that housed it, which dates back to 1941 and is still standing, is a longtime marker that if the URA Master Plan for the area is to be realised, may also soon disappear from sight.
The observation tower at View Road.
Although the former View Road Hospital, once also a home to Asian Naval Base Policemen and their families may be of little architectural value and of little significance in the whole scheme of buildings within the former naval base, it has, since I started conducting tours in collaboration with the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) in 2017, has become one of my favourite places. Why that is so is for the views one is able to get from its lookout tower, one that now provides an idea of the scale of redevelopment that is taking place in and around it. An example of the development work that is now in evidence, is the Rail Transit System link that will connect Woodlands North to Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru via a 25 metre high bridge. Scheduled to open by the end of 2026, it will transform the area into a major entry point for cross border human traffic with its peak capacity of 10,000 passengers per hour.
Among the other developments that is already taking place in the area, is that of the future Woodlands North Coast, a component the overall Woodland Regional Centre. Based on the URA Master Plane, that does appear to spell the end for the former hospital.
The MHC’s or Malay Heritage Centre’s Hari Raya Open House, “Last Kopek Raya” — a reference to the last bits of the celebration of Aidilfitri (Eid al-Fitr), which is celebrated over the “Raya month”, Syawal, in this part of the world — opened with a bang last evening (27 May 2022) by Minister for Social and Family Development, Masagos Zulkifli. The launch party featured senior members of Firaqatul Wannazam and Keroncong Jazz Band, Nobat Kota Singapura, providing guests with a nostalgic treat through a wonderful and truly nostalgic keroncong performance.
The open house this last “Raya” weekend (27 to 29 May 2022) will be the last to be held before MHC closes in August for a two-year revamp and sees a series of events, activities and displays that include live performances, art installations, craft workshops, and storytelling sessions. More information on the events for the open house can be found at the MHC’s website and also on the event registration page.
Minister for Social and Family Development, Masagos Zulkifli.
Once home to a huge naval base that stretched from the Causeway to Sembawang Road, Singapore’s rather sleepy northern coast seems set for a huge transformation. Work to build a much-anticipated rail transit system link to Johor Bahru is already underway and the signs are that the ground is already being prepared for a role as key component of the future Woodlands Regional Centre. The demolition of much of the former KD Malaya complex is now already complete, and all that is left of the longtime landmark, sited in an area close to Woodlands North MRT Station is gone, save for the conserved administration building. One set of structures that may likely disappear is the former quarters at Khalsa Crescent, which many of us would only know as Khalsa Crescent Prison.
The former Khalsa Crescent Prison, which has a much storied past. Block 6 (Prison Block F) was used as accommodation for policemen and featured a recreational space below where lectures and police parties during Sikh religious festivals were held. The space also functioned as a games room.
The watchtowers of the former prison are what draws notice to the complex.
Built in 1950 on the site of the Torpedo Depot “coolie lines”, Khalsa Crescent (Asian) quarters provided Asian members of the naval base workforce and their families, with a roof over their heads. Among those who were housed on the site were members of the Naval Base Police Force and the Naval Base Fire Service, for whom the set of quarters was affectionately known as “Torpedo”, having been know initially as “Torpedo Depot Lines”. When built, the quarters comprised seven two-storey blocks cont laid out with some 170 rooms that could accommodate up to 180 families. Among the blocks were ones housing bachelors with common spaces such as rest and mess rooms and recreational spaces found on the ground floors. Flag Officer (Malaya), Rear Admiral Clifford Caslon, who opened the estate on 10 January 1950, described the construction of new housing units as evidence that interest to the welfare and comfort of the base’s civilian staff was being shown by the Admiralty.
The newly built accommodation blocks in 1950, with Blocks 1 and 2 (far end) on the left, and Blocks 3 (far end) and 4 on the right.
The scene today.
During its first years, the quarters accommodated a fair number of Sikhs families, who men served in the Naval Base Police Force. As a result of this, a gurdwara was established in the eastern section of the ground floor of Block 5. Due to this association with the Sikh members of the force, the road through the estate was named “Khalsa”, which means “pure” in Punjabi. Khalsa, which also describes the guiding principle of the Sikh religion community, is often used as a reference to the Sikh community. The gurdwara moved to View Road (Rimau), where an Asian Naval Base Police Barracks was established, together with the Sikh policemen and their families in 1959. Some naval base policemen continued to stay in Khalsa Crescent while there were others who also relocated to Cochrane Crescent at about the same time. In the 1960s, a surau for Muslim policemen and their families was established at Block 5.
The section of Block 5 where I am told the gurdwara was.
The British military pullout, which took place at the end of October 1971, also saw to the eventual disbandment of the various services associated with the naval base and while the quarters continued in their use as accommodation units, the winds of change would eventually blow through the estate. In late 1974, some three years after the pullout, several of the accommodation blocks at Khalsa Crescent were converted for use as a remand centre and the forerunner of the Drug Rehabilitation Centre (DRC) — the DRC system was apparently formalised in 1977, although the term was already in use – as part of a broader scheme to segregate drug inmates (also according to the number of times they were hauled in). But while this may have been the intention, one of the centre’s first uses was for the detention of illegal immigrants, more specifically a group of 56 who had fled South Vietnam as the situation deteriorated in the lead up to the Fall of Saigon in April 1975. The group of 56, with 18 women and 10 children among them, arrived on a stolen military plane on 3 April 1975. Having come without the necessary visas, they were detained as illegal immigrants and were held at Khalsa Crescent where they spent 3 weeks, after which they were sent on to Guam.
A view of the former prison.
This drug rehabilitation scheme saw further changes to it and by 1995, drug addicts would first be sent to Sembawang DRC, where they would be observed and further processing was carried out. They would then be placed based on their previous records. Khalsa Crescent DRC was where third time offenders were sent to. Khalsa Crescent’s capacity was increased from 500 to 1050 during a renovation exercise that was carried out in anticipation of this new arrangement. In June 2005, Khalsa Crescent DRC became simply Khalsa Crescent Prison.
Members of the Khalsa Crescent Sikh Community.
The modernisation and expansion of the Changi Prison complex in 2009, saw to the move of some 5000 inmates from prisons like Khalsa Crescent Prison, which was described as the “largest transfer of prisoners in local history”. What that also meant was that older facilities such as Khalsa Crescent Prison were made redundant and surplus to requirements. Decommissioned, the former prison lay hidden behind its tall green security fence — that is until 21 May 2022 when former residents of the one-time Asian quarters were allowed to take a short but sweet walk back in time in anticipation of the complex’s eventual demolition.
Memories of Khalsa Crescent.
Vietnamese Refugees in Singapore Following the incident involving the 56 refugees arriving by plane, the opium treatment centre at St John’s Island was temporarily set aside for refugees. Addicts under treatment on the island displaced by the arrangements were then moved to Khalsa Crescent Remand Centre, where the 56 had been held. The island refugee camp would be closed in October 1975 and subsequent to that, Singapore took a strong stand against refugees who began to leave the former South Vietnam by boat. A policy of restocking refugee boats before towing the boats back out to sea was initially put in place. It would only be in 1978 at a time when the refugee crisis reached its peak that Singapore permitted refugees to land on the condition that a guarantee was made of resettlement in a third country within three months by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The UNHCR was also allowed to set up and run a refugee camp at Hawkins Road, not far from Khalsa Crescent.
The evolution of the area through maps and aerials
Maps of the Torpedo Depot area showing the former coolie lines in 1945 and the blocks of the Asian quarters in 1968.
