The case of the missing beach

Street names in Singapore often hold clues to the past. Names such as “Telok Ayer Street” and “Beach Road” for example, provide an indication of where the city’s original shoreline might have been. And just as there was originally a “telok” or bay along which Telok Ayer Street ran, there was also a beach by Beach Road.

Among the questions that come to mind are: what did the beach look like, and how far did the beach stretch? Well, we do know for a start that the beach was pleasant enough for Raffles to have the stretch along the beach reserved for the dwellings of the new settlement’s elite residents as part of the European section of town (see: Middle Road and the (un)European Town). Known as the “street of twenty houses” in the vernacular, a row of twenty large compound houses did actually take up the prime stretch of Beach Road fronting the beach.

Where the beach along Beach Road would have been — from a 1839 Map of the Town and Environs of Singapore.

To address the first question as to what did the beach look like, we do fortunately have more than just textual descriptions of it. A visual representation of the beach can be found in a sketch from 1847 that was made by Government Surveyor John Turnbull Thomson. Titled “View from Campong Glam”, the sketch shows a sandy beach with identifiable buildings such as The Arts House (ex-Parliament House and then Public Offices / Courthouse) and the former Raffles Institution.

J T Thomson’s 1847 sketch depicting the beach along Beach Road.

As for the extent of the beach, archeological evidence does show that the beach extended from the Singapore River (as is also seen in J T Thomson’s 1847 sketch) to Kampong Gelam. Excavations carried out in 2003 by Professor John Miksic and his team in the National University of Singapore have in fact revealed the existence of a layer of pure white sand under the Padang close to St Andrews Road dating back to the 14th century — the period when Sri Tri Buana or Sang Nila Utama established a port city in Singapore. Further excavations have confirmed that this white sandy beach stretched at least to the area fronting Istana Kampong Glam (Malay Heritage Centre). What is particularly interesting is that the white sandy beach, based on Prof. Miksic’s reckoning, may be the beach that drew Sri Tri Buana to the island, which is described in the Malay Annals as one with “sand so white that it looked like a sheet of cloth”!

Beach Road, late 1800s (G R Lambert)

Among the houses for the European elite fronting the beach was house number one at which Raffles Hotel would be established in 1887. By this time, most of the compound houses along the beach had disappeared and those that remained, had taken on a shabby appearance with the well-to-do having made the move to the more comfortable interior of the island. The area had in fact already morphed into Sio Po, the Chinese lesser town with the Hainanese community having established a temple dedicated to the protector of the seas, Mazu, at Malabar Street in 1857.

No 1 Beach Road at which Raffles Hotel was established in 1887.

It was soon after the establishment of the hotel, that it began to lose sight of the beach across Beach Road with reclamation works for what would later be known as the “Raffles Reclamation” beginning off the Esplanade — amid a blaze of rumours that sacrificial human heads were needed for work to proceed smoothly (yes, such rumours existed even then!). This would lead to an expanded Padang of the size we know today and the addition of land on the Beach Road side. By the early 1900s, the reclamation ground — which was used to dump mud dredged from the Singapore River — had become substantial enough to permit the ground to be used for polo and other sports. The old volunteer drill hall was also moved to it in early 1908 from its original site at Fort Fullerton.

The newer Drill Hall at Beach Road, which replaced the older drill hall that was moved over in 1908 from Fort Fullerton.

The reclamation site would also be where Singapore’s first permanent cinema halls were erected. Cinema first came to Singapore in 1897, just two years after the Lumière brothers exhibited the Cinématographe in Paris. Exhibitions were held either in halls and tents before the first permanent structures appeared on the Raffles Reclamation site in the 1900s.

Permanent cinematograph halls were among the first structures erected on the reclamation at Beach Road.

Further reclamation would take place through the 1930s, by which time structures such as Beach Road Camp and a newer Beach Road Police Station started to populate the reclamation site. The coastline would be altered further with the construction of Nicoll Highway in the mid-1950s and the development of what would eventually become Marina Bay, bringing us to where we are today.

1936 view of the reclamation.

Post-World War Two extent of the Raffles Reclamation.

Beach Road Police Barracks (built 1934) – demolished for Guocoland’s Midtown development.

Time to joget at Kampong Gelam

It was joget time tinged with quite a fair bit of nostalgia on the front lawn of the Istana Kampong Gelam last evening during the gala opening of the MHC ClosingFest. The event also saw Guest-of-Honour, Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs & Ministry of National Development letting his hair down by reciting a pantun and joining in at the end of the joget session.

The opening gala is part of a series of activities being held as part of MHC ClosingFest as the MHC or Malay Heritage Centre winds down (or rather up) towards its closure at the end of October for a revamp (it is scheduled to reopen in 2025). Besides the last night’s event, a series of activities are also being held across weekends in October that will not only celebrate the legacy and milestones of MHC, which the former palace of the descendants of Sultan Hussein houses, but also celebrates of the cultures of the Nusantara, from which some members of the wider Malay community in Singapore trace their roots to.

The Bazaar Nusantara, which is being held this weekend (15/16 Oct 2022 4 to 10 pm) for example, will feature the cuisines and cultural practices of the Baweanese, Bugis and Banjarese. There will be performances of Baweanese silat and Javanese kuda kepang, as well as a keris (dagger) cleansing ritual.

More information on the activities can be found on the MHC’s Peatix page.

The beautiful Masjid Sultan as you may not have seen it

Designed in the Indo-Islamic¹ style by the prolific Denis Santry of Swan and Maclaren in 1924, the beautiful Masjid Sultan or Sultan’s Mosque stands today as a focal point of the Muslim community here in Singapore. Work commenced in 1928 and the first part of the mosque was completed around 1930. T he mosque replaced an older mosque that was built in a style that is commonly found across the Malay archipelago featuring a multi-tiered roof. The older mosque was built for Sultan Hussein Shah around 1824 with a contribution of 3,000 Spanish dollars from Sir Stamford Raffles. The photographs below, many of which were taken from the roof, belong to a set that I took in 2016 during a visit to it organised in conjunction with the URA 2016 Architectural Heritage Awards – at which the mosque restoration project was awarded a prize for restoration.

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Note:

¹ The style of the Sultan’s Mosque has widely been described as Indo-Saracenic. However, architect and historian LaI Chee Kien would rather have the style described as Indo-Islamic rather than Saracenic. The reason provided was that the British used more elements from the Mughal period there in India than in Arab-Muslim or Turkish-Muslim areas.

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The older Sultan’s Mosque

Masjid Sultan, 1846, by John Turnbull Thomson
Hocken Pictorial Collections – 92/1155 a12134 https://otago.ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/4675.

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Maghrib at Kampong Gelam

There is no better time of day than maghrib, or sunset, to take in Kampong Gelam. The winding down of the day in Singapore’s old royal quarter is accompanied by an air of calm brought by the strains of the azan – the Muslim call to prayer, and, as it was the case last evening, made a much greater joy by a colouring of the evening sky.

Masjid Sultan against the evening sky.

Viewed against that dramatic backdrop, Masjid Sultan – the area’s main landmark – looked especially majestic. The golden dome topped National Monument, Singapore’s principal mosque, stands just a stone-throw’s away from the former Istana Kampong Gelam. Erected by Sultan Hussein Shah’s heir Ali, the istana or palace, served little more than a symbolic seat of power which Hussein had all but relinquished in signing the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance in 1824. Now the Malay Heritage Centre, the istana is a showcase of the Malay world’s culture and a reminder perhaps of the last days and lost glory of a once mighty Johor-Riau-Lingga Empire.

Istana Kampong Gelam.

More on Masjid Sultan and Istana Kampong Gelam and the Johor Empire can be found at the following posts:

• A Ramandan trail at the Sultan’s Mosque
• The palace of an Empire lost
• The mysterious peaks we sing about in Di Tanjong Katong

 

Masjid Sultan.

 

Journeys of faith and devotion from Kampong Gelam

An insightful exhibition featuring the journeys of faith that Hajj pilgrims take in both body and in spirit, ‘Undangan ke Baitullah: Pilgrims Stories from the Malay World to Makkah’, was launched together with the Malay Culture Fest 2018 yesterday (12 Oct 2018).

 

A performance at the opening, reenacting a pilgrim’s journey of faith.

The exhibition, which runs from 13 October 2018 to 23 June 2019, takes a look at Kampong Gelam’s role in supporting the Hajj. The district, having been an important port town, saw Muslims from across the Nusantara congregate in preparation for the often difficult passage by sea to Mecca in days before air travel (the area around Busorrah Street was also known as ‘Kampong Kaji‘ – ‘kaji’ was apparently the Javanese pronunciation of ‘haji‘).

Mdm Halimah Yacob, President of the Republic of Singapore, launching the exhibition and the Malay Culture Fest.

Many businesses such the popular nasi padang outlet Hjh. Maimunah had its roots in the pilgrimage. The restaurant, which has an outlet at Jalan Pisang, is named after the founder’s mother Hajjah Maimunah, who was Singapore’s first female Hajj broker (or sheikh haji). The enterprising Hajjah Maimunah also ran a food business during the Hajj catering to pilgrims from this part of the world in Mecca.

The Malay Culture Fest, which was opened together with the exhibition, runs from 12 to 28 October 2018 and will feature lectures and performances over the three weeks. More information can be found at :   https://peatix.com/group/40767/events.

Entrance to one of the exhibition’s galleries.

The hajj passport of a child pilgrim on display at the exhibition.

A trunk and a suitcase used by pilgrims on display.

 

Horses dancing on the Istana’s lawn

One of the memories that connects me to Tanah Merah, a magical place that I dearly miss by the sea, is of seeing what had first appeared to me to be grown men at play on cardboard horses. Tanah Merah was a wondrous place to me, not just because of that little moment of magic, but also due to its physical landscape. Set along a coast marked by cliffs from which the area derived its name, it a naturally beautiful world into which I could in my childhood, often find an escape in.

Four decades now separates me that memory. The place has long been discarded by a Singapore that has little sentiment for its natural beauty, but what I remember of it, the horsemen I saw at play,  continues to be a source of fascination for me, play a dance that is surrounded by much mystique.

The dance, known as Kuda Kepang here in Singapore, is thought to have its origins in the animistic practices of pre-Islamic Java and part of the mystery that surrounds it are the spirits invoked in joining man with the horses they stand astride on. The trance the horsemen fall into provide the ability to do what science cannot explain.

I revisited these memories of what I had witness as a young child from the safety of the side of the road at the village of Kampong Ayer Gemuroh in Tanah Merah. With the familiar strains of the dizzying gamelan-like accompaniment playing, I watched, enthralled, as men possessed pranced on their two-dimensional horses in the shadows of a former royal palace .

The palace, once the Istana Kampong Glam, is now a centre to promote the history and culture of the Malay community of which the descendants of the Javanese immigrants in Singapore have largely assimilated into. Known as the Malay Heritage Centre, it was on its now well manicured lawn on which I was able to catch what today is a rare performance of the age-old dance.

Where it had once been quite commonly seen, especially at happy occasions such as weddings, performances in public have become few and far between as a change in lifestyles, social perceptions, and religious objections, have seen such ritual practices having been all but discarded.

While I have in fact put up a post on the dance, sitting through an entire performance does mean I have a newer and more photographs of the dance to share in this post. My previous post does however contain a more complete description of my first impressions of Kuda Kepang and on the dance itself, and should you wish to visit it, it can be found at this link.

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Before the performance

Prayers offered before the performance.

 

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Preliminaries

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During the Dance

Smoke from the kemenyan (incense) being breathed in.

Men becoming one with the horse.

The performers are obviously in a trance-like state.

Drinking from a bucket of water.

The horses are whipped, apparently without any pain being felt.

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The Barong

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Performers being brought out of the trance

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The ‘Tombs of Malayan Princes’

Lying somewhat obscurely and hidden at Jalan Kubor off Victoria Street is the Old Malay Cemetery. The cemetery, which is across Jalan Kubor from the Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah Cemetery, another old Muslim cemetery better know perhaps for an incident in 1972 involving two gunmen, is the oldest Malay burial ground in Singapore on record. Quite prominently identified on maps dating from the 1820s and 1830s, it is shown on J. B. Tassin’s Map (Map of The Town and Environs, Singapore) of 1836,  as the ‘Tombs of Malayan Princes’.

The burial grounds are described in a heritage trail guide put together by the National Heritage Board (NHB) on Kampong Glam:

MALAY BURIAL GROUNDS AT JALAN KUBOR

In the early maps of Singapore, these burial grounds were marked as “Mohamedan cemetery” and “Tombs of Malayan Princes”. According to 19th century reports, there were three distinct burial plots here – a 5 1/3 acre Malay cemetery, the 3-acre Sultan’s family burial grounds located within the Malay cemetery and a cemetery for Indian Muslims. In 1875, the municipality closed down the Malay cemetery but agreed to the Sultan’s request that his family could continue to use the royal burial grounds. The sultan’s burial grounds were walled in and the graves were situated in elevated plots. It was noted in the early 20th century that non-Muslims were not allowed to enter them.

An extract of Tassin’s map of 1836 showing the location of the ‘Tombs of the Malayan Princes’.

More information on the cemetery also came to light during a recent talk by A/Prof Imran bin Tajudeen of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Department of Architecture. A synopsis written for the talk also provides some insight into the area and the cemetery:

Several old settlements existed in Singapore besides the Temenggong’s estuarine settlement at Singapore River before Raffles’ arrival in 1819. Among these, Kampung Gelam and the Rochor and Kallang River banks were also sites of historic graveyards related to old settlements of Singapura both before and during colonial rule. The Jalan Kubor cemetery is the only sizable cemetery grounds still largely undisturbed. It belongs with Kampung Gelam history but has been excluded from the “Kampong Glam Conservation District” boundary, and is important for several reasons. It forms part of the old royal port town that was developed when Tengku Long of Riau was installed as Sultan Hussein in Singapore, and is aligned along the royal axis of the town. It is also the final resting place of several traders of diverse ethnicity from the old port towns of our region – neighbouring Riau, Palembang, and Pontianak, as well as Banjarmasin and the Javanese and Bugis ports further afield. Some of these individuals are buried in family enclosures, mausolea, or clusters. Conversely, there are also hundreds of graves of unnamed individuals from Kampung Gelam and surrounding areas. The tombstone forms and epigraphy reflect this immense socio-cultural diversity, and were carved in Kampung Gelam by Javanese and Chinese stone carvers, except for a number of special cases. Several large trees of great age are also found in this lush ‘pocket park’.