More Windows into the Past: The gilt-decorated domed mansion that depleted Singapore’s stock of gold

Another set of photographs from the Harrison Forman collection offering a peak into Singapore’s past is one that contains views, in complete colour, of a famous but long demolished mansion and its curious garden in 1941. Both were objects of much fascination, and its even had the likes of Carl Mydans also photographing it for LIFE Magazine that same year, for a feature on Singapore published in July 1941.

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Perched on an elevation that was described as “probably one of the best” for a mansion in Singapore and one that commanded a “striking view” of a great part of the island, the lavish and gilt-domed residence of the Aw’s in Pasir Panjang, Haw Par Villa, must have been a magnificent sight for the one thousand guests who were invited for its housewarming party in March 1937. No expense had been spared in the construction and the fit out of the rather lavish interiors of the mansion, which was topped by seven gilded domes. Such was the amount of gold that was used that Singapore’s entire stock of gold was reportedly depleted because of it!

Haw Par Villa in full colour, Harrison Forman, 1941.

Designed by pioneering Singapore architect Ho Kwong Yew, Haw Par Villa sat on a plan that was rather uniquely a series of circles centred on a central hall that was surrounded by circular rooms. Entering the house, one would have encountered its reception hall, and beyond that the central hall. There was also a drawing room, a dining room, four bedrooms with dressing rooms and attached bathrooms, all of which were furnished in a rather ostentatious manner with furnishings and decorative items that were handpicked by Mr Aw Boon Haw from the “best furnishing houses and decorators” during his travels to America and Europe. Even the coloured cement walls inside the house were expensively decorated — with mother of pearl inlays. There were also specially made bronze panels which had been brought in from Europe featuring tigers in various poses, lining the doorways inside the house. The opulent interiors would also have been brought quite literally to light by day and by night, having been illuminated by the generous amount of light filtering through stained-glass laylights fitted on the domes, and through the house’s curved steel-framed windows in the daytime, and by coloured lighting after nightfall.

A much photographed pagoda, Harrison Forman, 1941.

Almost as soon as it was completed, the villa, and the fantastical and extravagantly laid out and publicly accessible garden that was created to complement it, became an instant hit with visitors to Singapore, as well as with the local population. Open to the public, the garden was laid out over several terraces of the elevation that the villa stood on, and although it was meant to complement the mansion rather than take centrestage, much attention was drawn to it by curious press reporters and photographers. Its decorative structures, such as the rockeries and grottoes of artificial rocks, a pagoda, miniature buildings and figurines depicting animals such as cranes and storks, drew a fair bit of interest as did its 50 feet by 25 feet swimming pool.

A garden that was created to complement the villa, Harrison Forman, 1941.

The garden soon became synonymous with Singapore and a must-visit visitor attraction. Among its early visitors were Hollywood couple, William Keighley and Genevieve Tobin during part of their honeymoon in Singapore in May 1939, 39 Australian schoolboys visiting Singapore with the Young Australia League in January 1939. The garden also took centrestage for a pahit party (cocktail party) that was thrown for a visiting Republic of China military delegation in May 1941, which was attended by the British military’s top brass based in Singapore. Such was Haw Par Villa’s draw that it seemed to be the first out-of-town destination to which “all newcomers to Singapore” were brought to — as was the case with a batch of Australian nurses with the Australian Army Nursing Service who were sent to Singapore in September 1941.¹

AANS nurses visiting Haw Par Villa (with the villa seen in the background) in September 1941 (source: Australian War Memorial, public domain, copyright expired).

The villa was itself was a draw. Public access to it was permitted during open houses held on festive occasions such as the Chinese New Year. Sadly, the villa did not survive very long. It was taken over for use as a residence during the Japanese Occupation and reportedly housed both Japanese and German officers.² Poorly maintained, it was left in a poor state by the end of the war. Looting had also stripped the house of all its furnishings and many of the statues from its garden.

By early 1951, Mr Aw Boon Haw, who had lost his younger brother during the war (Boon Par died in Rangoon in 1944), had Haw Par Villa demolished in the hope that he could have a mansion modelled after a Chinese-styled palace put up in its place. Later, a 200 ft high pagoda was proposed. The ongoing austerity drive, which limited spending on private home to a mere $50,000, put paid to Mr Aw’s plans and he turned his attention instead to expanding the set of displays. In doing so, he placed focus on using displays to provide moral guidance to visiting members of the public through the depiction of scenes from Chinese folklore, the Chinese classics, and Buddhist and Taoist teaching which contained messaging on moral values such as filial piety.

Both Taoist and Buddhist themes feature in Haw Par Villa’s displays, Harrison Forman, 1941.

Mr Aw passed away in September 1954 without being able to fulfil a desire to have the demolished villa replaced. The garden, which took on the name “Haw Par Villa” from its association with the missing villa, continued to be a popular spot for visitors to the island. Its collection of figurines and tableaux would have appeared to have been quite bizarre to those not schooled in traditional Chinese teachings and was at the very minimum, a source of amusement and fascination. Among those who graced the garden was the very first Miss Universe, Armi Kuufcla, who visited in April 1953. Another famous personality to visit was teenage idol, Frankie Avalon, late in 1965.

Harrison Forman, 1941.

The garden was also popular for fashion shoots, and as a filming location. Among the movies with scenes shot at Haw Par Villa was a joint Bollywood-Malayan production, “Singapore” in 1959, which contained a scene that saw the popular Maria Menado dance with Bollywood heartthrob Shammi Kapoor. The film was released in 1960. A 1966 Hollywood production, Kommisar X, aka Operation Far East, aka So Darling, So Deadly, had a scene that featured a chase through the garden, and a 1967 British production, Pretty Polly (also A Matter of Innocence) included an evening scene that was filmed at Haw Par Villa.

Harrison Forman, 1941.

Following Aw Boon Haw’s death, Boon Par’s son, Aw Cheng Chye, introduced displays that broke with the garden’s theme, and its Chinese flavour. An avid traveller, Cheng Chye put up International Corners to mark his overseas trips. While this may have contributed to the garden’s quirkiness, it did much to alter its character. Much, much more has happened since. An attempt to convert the garden into a theme park in 1990, failed rather miserably. That saw a ride through an all too prominent dragon. This some believe, brought negative energy on the garden due to the incompatibility of the dragon and the tiger (the “Haw” in Boon Haw’s name, translates into tiger). Most recently, the garden seems to have gone the way of hell, with the current operator intent on Hell’s Museum becoming Haw Par Villa’s draw even if hell, especially the non-Chinese interpretations of life after death, was never intended as the garden’s dominant theme.

The dragon that swallowed hell up – during its theme park days.

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¹A number from the group were among a second batch of evacuees who would depart on board the SS Vyner Brooke on 12 February 1942, which was attacked and sunk by the Japanese forces on 14 February 1942 in the Bangka Strait. Out of a group of 65 nurses on board the Vyner Brooke, only 24 survived the war, with 21 losing their lives during a massacre on Radji Beach on Bangka Island. 

²There was a German U-Boat repair and supply facility maintained at Pulau Damar Darat, which included a graving dock. Among the residences that German naval personnel were known to have used were ones in Pasir Panjang and also at Gilstead Road.

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Adis Lodge – another Crazy-Rich-Asian mansion near Dhoby Ghaut

In my previous post, I identified one of Singapore’s real Crazy-Rich-Asian residences which was at Dhoby Ghaut – the mansion of Mr Teo Hoo Lye. That was only one of a few that came up in and around the area. The elevation that Mr Teo’s mansion stood at the foot of, Mount Sophia, with its proximity to the urban centre and the wonderful views that it offered, was in fact littered with the opulent homes of the well-to-do. One of these was the residence of Mr Nissim Nissim Adis. Built in 1907, it was thought of as “one of the most magnificent of mansions east of the Suez”. It was after Mr Adis, that Adis Road at Mount Sophia, was named.

Adis Lodge

Mr Adis, who owned the very grand Grand Hotel de l’Europe (where old Supreme Court — the Supreme Court Wing of the National Gallery now stands) and was also the man behind the stockbroking firm of Adis and Co. A Baghdadi Jew who was originally from Calcutta – where he was an aspiring lawyer before deciding to venture in 1876 — at the age of nineteen into stockbroking. He did not have much luck after brief success and decided to move to Hong Kong in 1888, having lost much of what he had made. The story was to be repeated in Hong Kong and this prompted Mr Adis to move to Singapore in 1893. He found greater success in Singapore, not so much from his stockbrokerage but from the investments that he made in property.

Adis Lodge in 1908.

Adis Lodge, which was designed by Tomlinson and Lermit and built at a cost of $300,000 Straits Dollars (approximately SGD 5½ million in today’s terms), boasted of eight bedrooms — each fitted with a dressing room and a bathroom with running hot and cold water (a big deal in those days). The house also had a “well-appointed” billiard room, spacious verandahs, and a beautifully furnished dining room on the ground level — where two of the bedrooms were arranged. Six bedrooms were laid out on the upper level along with a breakfast room and a drawing room. The mansion did not stand for very long. It was sold to Mr Eu Tong Sen in 1912 – just five years after it came up. Mr Eu, had the lodge replaced by what could be thought of as an even more magnificent mansion, Eu Villa, in 1915.

The Crazy-Rich-Asian mansion at Dhoby Ghaut

Described as a Victorian-style mansion, the mansion of shipowner Teo Hoo Lye once graced the site that is now occupied by The Cathay. Built in 1913 and demolished in the late 1930s, the mansion was — at some points in its short history — also used in parts by several tenants, one of which was the Royal English School, a private school.

Teo Hoo Lye’s mansion – as seen from the Raffles Museum and Library.

The school moved into part of the premises in 1925 before being evicted in 1931 — after Teo had lent his name to the Teo Hoo Lye Institution. Established by a Methodist minister, Chanan Singh, the school took the name in 1929 through a mutual arrangement which saw Teo providing part of his mansion for the school’s use rent-free.

A postcard of the mansion c.1920 (National Archives of Singapore)

Teo passed on in 1933 and the grand house came down about four years later in 1937, when Mrs Loke Yew and Loke Wan Tho purchased the site for Cathay Cinema.

Parting Glances: Losing a Pearl

A look back at Pearls Centre, which was demolished back in 2016 due to the construction of the Thomson-East Coast Line. The site for the mixed-use development was sold as part of the second wave of the Urban Renewal Department’s (later URA or Urban Redevelopment Authority) “Sale of Sites” programme. Initiated in 1967, the programme was an initiative to move urban redevelopment and renewal through the sale of sites acquired by the Government to private developers. and was initiated in 1967. Completed in 1977 – in an era of similarly designed buildings, Pearls Centre featured a 10-storey podium block with four floors of retail space and a multi-storey car park. A 12-floor block of luxury apartments was put up above the podium. The developers for the building was Outram Realty and the architect, Architectural Design Group. Its cinema would gain notoriety for screening R(A) movies.

The photographs below were taken in 2014/2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fight for freedom from where freedom had once been curtailed

I miss the Bras Basah Road of my schooldays. Wet rice road as “bras (or beras) basah” translates into, and the area around it, had a life about it and a charm that now seems lost.

A Bras Basah still with its many reminders of the past. The Cox Club at Waterloo Street can be seen on the left behind the bus (F W York Collection, National Archives of Singapore).

The row of Indian Rojak stalls at Waterloo Street – a favourite makan destination during my days in school (posted on AsiaOne).

The street, a destination for those in search of sporting goods, books and good affordable food, was also where school was for some. Several of Singapore’s pioneering schools, including our very first, Raffles Institution, have their roots in the area.

Bras Basah Road as seen from the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in 1968. The row of shophouses where bookshops and sporting goods shops were concentrated can be seen just beyond Saint Joseph’s Institution (now the Singapore Art Museum). The Cathay building, ‘Singapore’s first skyscraper’, can be seen at the end of Bras Basah at Dhoby Ghaut (http://www.goingplacessingapore.sg).

The row of book and sporting goods shops opposite the remnants of a 18th century gaol along Bras Basah Road (National Archives photograph).

Without the shops, the makan places and children hurrying to school, an air of emptiness now surrounds the place; an emptiness that also extends to a built environment that now lacks several markers of the area’s eventful past.

The former Raffles Institution as seen from Beach Road – where Raffles City now stands.

The emptiness that is today Bras Basah Road.

One missing piece of this past would have taken us back to forgotten days when Singapore served British India as a penal colony. This piece, a cluster of structures belonging to a nineteenth century convict gaol, had long been a prominent feature on the Bras Basah Road until it was demolished in the late 1980s.

A view of Bras Basah Road from Mount Sophia on a 19th century postcard The gaol complex is seen just beyond the drying laundry at Bras Basah Green – what gave Dhoby Ghaut its name.

The cluster stood close to where Bencoolen Street crossed Bras Basah Road, its most noticeable structure being one I initially suspected was the gaol’s gate-house. Built flush with what would have been the outer walls of the gaol, an arched passageway wide enough for a carriage to pass suggested it might have been one.

The inside of the gaol, photographed by G H Lambert, looking towards what appears to be the former apothecary’s quarters (National Archives photograph).

The cluster was all that remained of a prison complex that old maps show to stretch southwards to the Stamford Canal, originally the Freshwater Rivulet, and eastwards to Victoria Street over the plot on which Raffles Girls School at Queen Street would be built.

The Layout of the Bras Basah Gaol.

The gaol gates – where the southward extension of Waterloo Street was to be constructed..

Where the gates would have been across Bras Basah Road.

The gaol, built by the convicts themselves, was completed in 1860. It last saw use as a prison in 1882, some years after the last of the convicts brought from India had been released in 1873. The convicts were put to work, clearing forests, hunting tigers and building Singapore – many of Singapore’s first paved roads including Bras Basah, structures such as the bund at Collyer Quay, St. Andrew’s Cathedral and the Raffles and Horsburgh lighthouses were built by these convicts. What remained of the gaol was also perhaps a reminder not just of the penal colony but also of the contribution made by the convicts in the building up of early British Singapore.

Raffles Lighthouse, among the structures built by convict labour.

A map of the Bras Basah area in the mid 1800s showing the location of the gaol.

The gaol proper was laid out across an area that included what became the sports field of the school I attended, Saint Joseph’s Institution (SJI) and the now paved over southward extension of Waterloo Street that was known in more recent times for the famous row of Indian Rojak stalls.  The area had apparently already been cleared and was in use as a playing field, referred to as the “Children’s Corner”, in the early twentieth century.

The Saint Joseph’s Institution field in the 1970s.

The “gate-house”, it turns out, had not been the gaol’s gates, but the apothecary’s quarters – part of the set of buildings laid out along the western boundary to house the gaol’s hospital and lunatic asylum.

The former apothecary’s quarters used by the CYMA along Bras Basah Road (c. 1970s).

If not for the fact that the lunatic asylum and the gaol had long moved out, one might have suspected that it might have been one of its inmates who sent part of the former gaol’s perimeter wall tumbling down in October 1978. This bizarre incident involved a Singapore Bus Service bus that had been stolen from the Toa Payoh bus depot by a 15-year old boy. The portion of the wall that it crashed into was one that was shared with the bedroom of a house used by the caretaker of what had then been the Catholic Young Men’s Association (CYMA) and it was fortunate that no one was hurt.

The 1978 incident involving a stolen SBS bus (National Archives photograph).

Besides becoming the home of the CYMA, the hospital section of the former gaol also saw use by the Malay Company of the Singapore Volunteer Corps up to the late 1930s. Part of the grounds also found use after the war as the Cox Club for Indian troops, which was later to house the Malayan Air Training Command (MATC). It was during its time as the MATC HQ that a Spitfire Mk 24 that some in the “pioneer generation” may remember seeing, found its way to the grounds.

A photograph taken by Randal McDowell in 1970 from the National Museum showing the section of the former gaol’s grounds west of Waterloo Street, when it was used by the CYMA. The former apothecary’s quarters can quite clearly be seen. Scouts can also be seen in the foreground – the troop from Catholic High School had their den on the grounds.

The former apothecary’s quarters in the days when the grounds were used by the Malay Company of the Singapore Volunteer Corps.

Interestingly, and ironically perhaps, the same grounds, used in its early days to curtail freedom of people shipped from the British India, was to find use in the fight to free India from British rule. It was there that the Indian National Army’s all women Rani of Jhansi regiment found their first training camp, which opened on 22 October 1943.

Capt. Lakshmi and Subhas Chandra Bose inspecting a guard of honour presented by members of the Rani of Jhansi regiment at the camp in Bras Basah Road. The former apothecary’s quarters and the arched verandahs of what became the Soon Chong Leong building at the corner of Bras Basah Road and Bencoolen Street can quite clearly be seen.

The area of the former Rani of Jhansi camp today – where the Singapore Management University’s School of Information Systems is located.

The Japanese Imperial Army supported INA found its second wind under the newly appointed Subhas Chandra Bose, seeking recruits among captured troops from the British Indian army units and the civilian population with the aim of freeing India from British rule. The events in Singapore of October 1943 represented a significant milestone for the INA. Not only was the women’s unit training camp established, a Provisional Government of Free India had, only a day before on 21 October 1943, been proclaimed by Subhas Chandra Bose at Cathay building.

Members of the Azad Hind posing for a photograph in Singapore on 21 October 1943.

The women’s regiment was formed in July 1943 through the efforts of the very young Captain (Dr.) Lakshmi Swaminathan (later Sahgal), who had come to Singapore only three years before to practice medicine. It drew its members mainly from the working classes in the Indian community of Singapore and Malaya  and counted some 1500 women in its ranks. Capt. Lakshmi besides being the leader of the regiment, was also appointed as the Minister in Charge of Women’s Organisation in the Azad Hind.

The women’s regiment drew many recruits from the working class in Singapore and Malaya.

An article, apparently written by Dr. Lakshmi, “My days in the Indian National Army”, offers some insights into the regiment and its training, which was to commence on 23 October 1943. In it she reveals:

“Our training lasted three months. It was very rigorous. We all had to wear a khaki uniform of pants and bush shirt, and cut our hair short. I had hair below my knees which my mother had never allowed me to cut. So I was really glad to have it cut and never grew it back since”.

Dr. Lakshmi’s account also tells of the women’s regiment’s participation in guerrilla attacks in Burma, to which the unit had been deployed in 1944 and 1945. The unit disbanded in 1945, at a time when the turning tide of the war in Burma had the Japanese Imperial Army and the INA in retreat.

The area where the apothecary’s quarters was.

As controversial as Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA, due to their collaboration with the occupying Japanese army, may be, the memory of the Bose and INA is one that has been kept alive here in Singapore. A marker at the Esplanade stands at the site of a memorial of the INA, now a historical site.

The INA memorial at Esplanade, marked with the words Ittehad, Itmad aur Qurbani, which in Urdu means Unity, Faith and Sacrifice  (National Archives photograph).

While the INA and Bose have not been forgotten, little however is now said of the Rani of Jhansi regiment and of Dr. Lakshmi, who passed away at the age of 97 in India in 2012. Like the gaol, the grounds of which the regiment also had its roots sunk into, the few physical reminders left have now been swept away by faceless buildings the man on the street struggles to find a connection to. That connection, brought about by the everyday things that drew us to the area and the many stories its buildings told of the history not just of one of Singapore’s oldest roads, but also of Singapore itself, is one that now seems to forever be broken.

A view down Bras Basah Road following the surrender in 1945, © IWM (IND 4817). The structures of the former goal – used by the Rani of Jhansi regiment as a training camp, can be seen at what would have been the gaol’s northwest corner.

The Royal Singapore Flying Club at Kallang

It isn’t only a playable surface, the tolerance that both players and spectators had for the rain, and the roar that has been lost with the building of the new National Stadium at Kallang.

The Royal SIngapore Flying Club’s clubhouse at the Kallang Civil Aerodrome in 1937.

Several structures around the old stadium, with their own links to the area’s history, have also been lost with the old stadium’s demolition, on of which was a little building that had been home to what had then been the “only flying club in the Empire to have received a royal charter”.

The new National Stadium seen at sunrise.

The building’s life began in 1937, serving as a clubhouse that was also the headquarters of the Royal Singapore Flying Club. The move of the club, which was established in 1928 and counted many prominent figures of the community among its members, from its previous premises in Trafalgar Street to Kallang coincided with the opening of the new Civil Aerodrome, and allowed the club to expand its range of activities.

The side of the building, as seen in 2009.

A Straits Times article dated 12 June 1937 describes the building at its opening:

The new headquarters of the flying club are conveniently located between the terminal building and the slipway of the seaplane anchorage. The building is of reinforced concrete throughout and is carried on precast piling. Accommodation is provided on the ground floor for offices and dressing rooms with the principal rooms to be found on the upper floor. 

The club room is approximately 50 feet by 18 feet. A kitchen and bar are provided and a committee room is at the rear over the carriage porch. The club room opens to an uncovered balcony through large collapsible doors which will enable members to sit inside under cover if necessary and yet have a clear view of the landing ground.

The main staircase is continued from the upper floor to the flat roof, which commands a fine view over the aerodrome and seaplane anchorage.

The front of the building in 2009 with the balcony and an expanded third floor.

Together with a hangar for seaplanes, it served the flying club for some 20 years. The move of the civil airport in 1955, prompted the club’s own move to Paya Lebar, which was completed in 1957. The clubhouse building was to survive for another 53 years. The construction of Nicoll Highway that the move of the airport allowed, cut it off from the cluster of aviation related structures close to the former airport’s terminal building, isolating it on a narrow wedge of land lying in the highway’s shadow.

The back of the building.

With the conversation of what became Kallang Park for sports use that came with the building of the old stadium in 1973, the former flying club’s HQ came under the Singapore Sports Council and was last used, on the basis of the signs left behind, as a “sports garden”. Abandoned in its latter years, it lay forgotten, wearing the appearance of a well worn and discarded building.

The building’s windows seen through a fence.

Demolished in late 2010, its site now lies buried under a road – close to the roundabout at the OCBC Acquatic Centre. And, while the club, which since became the Republic of Singapore Flying Club (in 1967), has not necessarily been forgotten; its association with Kallang, and the role the location played as a springboard for the expansion of recreational aviation, must surely have been.

The lost waterfront

The former waterfront at Collyer Quay is certainly one place which exemplifies how Singapore has transformed over the years, discarding much of what made Singapore a Singapore which was full of character and flavour, to the sea of glass, steel and concrete Singapore has become today.

The waterfront we inherited from our colonial masters was one of wonderfully designed buildings which might have rivaled Shanghai’s Bund. Even in 1971 after the Overseas Union Shopping Centre (see image above) did spoil some of that flavour, it still retained much of its original character. Then, the three “skyscrapers” that came up in the 1950s: the modern looking 15 storey Shell House (1959); the Bank of China Building (1954); and the Asia Insurance Building (1954) (out of picture), still dominated. It was however the grand looking edifices – several of them attributed to architecture firm Swan and MacLaren which designed many notable buildings from our past, which would have been noticed. This included the Maritime Building (former Union Building) with its tower and the HongKong Bank Chambers (1924) next to it. The Fullerton Building (1928) which housed the General Post Office also wouldn’t have been missed.

The beginning of the end for the old waterfront came at the end of the decade with the demolition of the HongKong Bank building notable not just for its English Renaissance style design, but also for its stained glass skylight over its main banking hall and huge bronze entrance doors, in 1979. The Maritime Building, built originally for the Union Insurance Society of Canton and which once housed the Far East headquarters of the Royal Air Force, soon followed in the early 1980s. What we do see today is a towering skyline of glass and steel against which the surviving “skyscrapers” of the 1950s are now dwarfed. The buildings along old waterfront which did survive are the Fullerton Building (Fullerton Hotel), Clifford Pier (part of Fullerton Bay Hotel), Bank of China Building, Customs House, and the Asia Insurance Building (Ascott Raffles Place).

The ‘sunken temple’ of Toa Payoh

A curious sight that greeted anyone travelling down Lorong 6 close to the Temple / Kim Keat Estate area of Toa Payoh in its early days and one I well remember was a temple that at road level, appeared to be have buried in the ground. The temple, Poh Tiong Keng 普忠宫 (Pu Zhong Gong), which I would refer to as the ‘sunken temple’, was one which went back to the village origins of the area, well before the towering public housing blocks of flats arrived.

The only photograph I have managed to find of the Poh Tien Keong with Block 33 seen behind it (online photograph at http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/aged-singapore-veneration-collides-20th-century).

The area where the ‘Poh Tien Keong was as seen today.

The Block 33 view of the area where the ‘sunken temple’ was.

Set in what would have been an undulating area, the levelling of the surrounding ground to put up blocks of flats in the late 1960s, it found itself in a hole in the ground with the 11 storey block 33 towering above it, surrounded by retaining walls put up by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to protect the temple from being buried. The temple was one of three existing temples which were left untouched by the HDB in clearing the land in the area for the development of the new housing estate. The other two were the Siong Lim Temple and the  Seu Teck Sean Temple.

The temple finding itself in a hole in the ground as work on the new public housing estate of Toa Payoh was being carried out in 1968 (Source: online catalogue of the National Archives of Singapore http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/).

Another photograph taken during the development of Toa Payoh in 1968 (Source: online catalogue of the National Archives of Singapore http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/).

Sadly the sight is one we no longer see. The temple was demolished in late 1977, not long after I moved out of Toa Payoh. The area where the temple was will now also see a huge change – the block of flats behind where the temple was along with several others in the area – some of which were leased out temporarily to Resorts World Sentosa to house their workers after residents were moved out, are due to be demolished (one of the blocks which will be demolished is Block 28, in front of which the iconic dragon of  Toa Payoh can be found).

The hole in the ground after the temple was demolished in 1977 (Source: online catalogue of the National Archives of Singapore http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/)

A last look around Block 33

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Afternote:

It has been brought to my attention that the Poh Tiong Beo (普忠庙) located diagonally across the road from this site was built to replace the ‘sunken temple’ as drainage was poor in the recess the original temple sat in and that would get flooded everytime it rained heavily.

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The star of Chong Pang Village

A landmark that would have been hard to miss on a northern journey to the end of Sembawang Road or to Sembawang Shipyard was the Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea, which occupied a corner of Chong Pang Village. The corner which the church occupied, was where a fork in the road gave one a choice of taking a left to Canberra Road or a right to continue along Sembawang Road. For many in the pre-1971 days of the Naval Base, the church would have marked the area which led to Canberra Gate – an entrance along the southern boundary of the huge base which had stretched along the northern coast of Singapore from a line which ran northeast from Canberra Gate all the way west close to the Causeway to what is today the western end of Woodlands Waterfront.

The Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea in Chong Pang Village (photo used with the kind permission of Mr Henry Cordeiro).

The church building, small by today’s standards (it would have had a seating capacity of maybe a hundred or two) and surrounded by a iron picket fence typical of fences of old, had a wonderful homely feel to it. The building was completed in 1953 through the efforts of its then parish priest, Fr. Albert Fortier. It  was blessed on 13 December 1953 by the visiting New Dehli based Apostolic Internuncio to Malaya (and India), Monsignor Martin Lucas who had a busy Sunday – he also blessed the Church of  the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Highland Road earlier on the same day.

The back of the church building seen in 1989 (photo used with the kind permission of Mr Henry Cordeiro). The church was blessed on 13 December 1953.

The parish’s history does go back a little further than the building that stood at the start of Canberra Road. Based on information on the church’s website, the origins of the parish goes back to the beginnings of the Naval Base when priests based at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes sought to extend their ministry to the small community of Catholics from 1926 – probably involved in the construction of the base which was fully completed only in 1938.  Services were to first be held in a makeshift building on the grounds of the Naval Base School before the parish was established by Fr. Dominic Vendargon at a building at Jalan Kedai (this would be the area across Canberra Road from where Sembawang Mart is today) which had been used  as a school during the Japanese Occupation in August 1949. It was Fr. Vendargon’s successor, Fr. Fortier, who had to put up a new church building after the former school was deemed unsafe in 1952 and the simple building was built at a cost of some $53,000. A statue of Christ which stood in the grounds just outside the church, another landmark, was added in February 1956.

A view of the church from the main road in 1989 (photo used with the kind permission of Mr Henry Cordeiro). The statue of Christ can be seen to the right.

The church building was one which I did visit from time to time in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, it did serve a large community of Tamil and Malayalee      parishioners, many of whom worked at Sembawang Shipyard which had taken over the Naval Dockyard in 1968. With the days of the village coming to a close in 1989 – it was being cleared to make way for the new public housing estate of Sembawang, the church (its land was also acquired) had to seek new premises. Its then parish priest, Fr. Louis Amiotte announced the construction of a new church at Yishun Street 22, designed in it was said to be in the shape of Noah’s Ark, which was completed in 1992. The new church building, built at the cost of $4 million, was blessed on 30 May 1992 by then Archbishop Gregory Yong.

The new church building at Yishun Street 22 – shaped like Noah’s Ark, was completed in 1992.

Much has changed in the area since the village disappeared at the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s. The new housing estate started coming up at the end of the 1990s and very little traces of the once bustling village are left. Much of the land on and around which the church had stood – except for the expanded road, is now vacant, awaiting future development which, at least based on the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Master Plan 2008, will see sports and recreation facilities coming up.

The corner where the church stood as seen today. Part of the grounds would be on what would today be the widened Sembawang Road. The corner at Sembawang Avenue and Sembawang Road is slated to be used for future development of sports and recreation facilities.

Map of Chong Pang Village c.1978

Once Tanah Merah …

There was at Tanah Merah, an idyllic world that in the Singapore of today, would be rather difficult to imagine. Set on a landscape on which the gentle undulations seemed to blend those of a forgotten sea, except for where a set of cliffs – the larger of two from which the area derives its name – stood, it was a most picturesque of spots and one in which many found an escape.

Caressed by the gentle breeze of the forgotten sea, Tanah Merah was where life was pretty; both for the occupants of the generously diemnsioned villas overlooking the sea, as it was for those whose humbler dwellings were marked by their thatched attap roofs.

Life was very much a beach for me, spending magical holidays by the sea in the Tanah Merah of old!

I first met the acquaintance of Tanah Merah as a child of three. A holiday taken at a huge government bungalow my parents were guests at, was to be the start of many early childhood encounters I was to have with the area.

Plymouth, the bungalow by the sea, near the village of Ayer Gemuroh, was one of two of a similar sort. The other was called Newquay. Perched on a small elevation that had overlooked the sea, it was typical of a colonial era house, its well selected position, a testament to the knack the British had for the best locations to house their colonial administrators.

The grounds of the bungalows at Tanah Merah, the Plymouth, at which I stayed at in Dec 1967 can be seen in the background.

As was typical of such houses, the bungalow was raised over the ground on stilt like columns. That I suppose, not only kept the vermin out, but also allowed ventilation through the slits in the wooden floorboards to keep the house cool in the oppressive tropical heat.

The bungalow would have been handed over to the Singapore government in the transition of the island from the colony to a state in the Federation and then independence. Several in the east, where the best beaches in Singapore were, were turned into holiday bungalows. This was to the benefit of the many civil service officers, in days when holidays at home by the sea were the fashion.

The entrance doorway of the Plymouth was accessible through a short flight of stairs.

The bungalow’s grassy and expansive grounds were shared with the neighbouring bungalow. A flight of stairs at its seaward end led to a terrace where benches allowed one to stare at the beach and sea beyond it.  Both the beach and the sea were accessible via another flight of stairs.

From the grounds, one climbed a short flight of stairs to the raised floor of the bungalow. This brought one up to a landing that led to a well ventilated lounge and dining area. Large airy bedrooms were also spread across the bungalow’s single level. The kitchen, and what would have been rooms that served as servants’ quarters, were found on behind the bungalows at ground level.

The expansive grounds where the bungalows were located was on a hillock close to Kampong Ayer Gemuruh that overlooked the sea.

The area around Ayer Gemuroh all was rather interesting. I would be given many views of the area from the back seat of my father’s Austin 1100 over the years that were to follow. The drives would take us from the holiday bungalows we would subsequently stay at in Mata Ikan, just southwest of Ayer Gemuroh, all the way to eastern ends of Changi Beach near Telok Paku where the waters were more pristine and also beyond which a favourite haunt of my parents, Changi Village, lay.

Map of the Kampong Ayer Gemuruh area showing the location of the Plymouth and Newquay (map source: Peter Chan).

The drives would take us through Wing Loong Road, down the area of the cliffs near where the road ended at Tanah Merah Besar Road. Moving beyond the T-junction, the road would become the marvellous Nicoll Drive, which ran along the casuarina lined beach and the sea, taking us past among other things, a children’s home.

Village scene, Kampong Ayer Gemuruh, 1963 (source: Peter Chan who obtained this photograph through a British guy whose father had worked in RAF Changi in the 1960s).

One of the sights to look out for during the drives would be David Marshall’s house by the sea. I was to learn much later that Marshall, who served as Singapore’s first Chief Minister upon the attainment of self-government, had the house named Tumasek and that it was where he entertained guests with his famous Sunday “curry lunches”. Marshall had set eyes on the house from a very young age and was able to purchase it only much later when its owner, a retiring accountant, wanted to sell it.

Aerial view of the coastline at the Tanah Merah area in 1964, close to the junction of Wing Loong Road with Tanah Merah Besar Road showing the “white cliffs” (source: Peter Chan).

The house then seemed a wonderful sight to behold. Set high over the sea, it greeted you especially on the approach from the northeast. It was from this point that the road  wound its way to Ayer Gemuroh and continued to the area where Mata Ikan was. The road moved inland from Mata Ikan towards Somapah Village. A path along the coastline would have taken one to Padang Terbakar and just beyond that to Bedok Corner

I had my first encounter with Kuda Kepang, a somewhat mystical dance of Javanese origins in which two-dimensional representations of horses are used, in passing Ayer Gemuroh on one of the drives. It was being performed in a clearing in the village for a wedding, as it would have been commonly seen in those days. Another sight from the village that would be etched in my memory is that of a group of boys walking around with their sarongs held away from their bodies by a frame. I would learn that the boys had just been circumcised and the frames, which presumably made of rattan, kept the sarongs from making painful contact with what must have been an especially tender spot.

Aerial view of the coastline at the Tanah Merah area in 1964, showing also Wing Loong Road (source: Peter Chan).

Another description of the area has also be provided by Peter Chan, who often guest blogs on Lam Chun See’s wonderful Good Morning Yesterday blog. I am also grateful to Peter for his aerial photographs, maps and some of the photographs in this post:

When you travel down Tanah Merah Besar Road, (after the junction with Tampines Road) you go down the “valley” and up the top then down the “valley” until you reach Nicoll drive junction. There was a sand pit on the left of Tanah Merah Besar Road (just before the junction) – you see like what you find in Malaya’s tin mining open cast mining this wooden “slide”.

Once you turn into Nicoll Drive on your right was Casuarina Motel (later called Aloha Rhu Village opened in 1971) with Hawaiian waitresses dressed in grass skirts. Then next was the Singapore Handicapped Home or Cheshire Chidlren’s home. In front of those homes was a WW2 pill-box.

You would then drive to 14 milestone Nicoll Drive. On your right you see one wooden community building – PA operated I think, called Tanah Merah Holiday Camp. There is a sharp bend to the right because there was the RAF Eastern Dispersal Area, and a road straight again to the Teluk Paku Road junction.

After this junction you find government division 1 holiday bungalows (black and white type, modern bungalows also – now where I think the SIA Engineering hangers are).

Teluk Mata Ikan was accessible from Wing Loong Road (metaled road), also from David Marshall house, from which one must pass 2SIB HQ called Tanah Merah Camp, which was built in 1966, There was also access from the north through Somapah Road.

There was a kampung and mosque at Ayer Gemuroh facing a cliff. Here are some photos you might need. I have written these up in my memories book. The PA venue could be called either Tanah Merah Holiday Camp or Changi Holiday Camp. The modern bungalows during RAF era were called B & H Bungalows (Brighton & Hoove still operate similar place in south England today)”.

The gateway to Tanah Merah. The junction of Tanah Marah Beasr Road, Changi Road and Tampines Road. The watch tower was a landmark in the area and was to watch over the perimeter fence around the piece of land in the background where prisoners from Changi Prison would be put to work (source: Peter Chan).

I suppose, beyond the descriptions provided, it would still be hard to fully appreciate what Tanah Merah was. Sadly for us and for the residents of the area, all the wonderment that a most beautiful of places provided, lives now only in our memories. That Tanah Merah, and its beautiful coast, lies in an area swallowed up by the massive land reclamation project of the early 1970s. Altering much of Singapore’s southern shores. In the case of Tanah Merah, it was to provide the land on which Changi Airport was to be built (a September 1970 news report in the Straits Times provides some information on the reclamation effort).

What has happened to the magical Tanah Merah Coastline …

The reclamation brought to not just a time of magical adventures for me. It altered the lives of many who had lived and had an attachment to an area of which little evidence other than a name, is left these days. Some of the area lies under Changi Airport with Ayer Gemuroh itself, buried under Taxiway WA (which runs along Runway 02L of Changi Airport). I have included a Google Earth map below, in an attempt to identify the approximate locations of the places I have mentioned.

The idyllic setting of Mata Ikan village as captured by Singapore artist Harold Ong.

All I have left of the most magical of places are some photographs, many fond memories, and a deep longing to return to an area that provided me with a joy that I have never again had the experience of.

Tanah Merah Besar, 1958, posted by Graham Collins on Facebook.

Farewell to the last of a trio

It was with a tinge of sadness that I realised that the last of a trio of landmarks that stood at the bottom of the southern slope of Fort Canning Hill has gone the way of two of its former companions. We have already lost two icons that once stood there, the National Theatre and Van Kleef Aquarium which remain only in the memories of those that knew them. The third, the River Valley Swimming Pool, not so much an icon, but a feature nonetheless at the foot of Singapore’s Forbidden Hill has somehow remained intact all these years after its closure in 2003, until recently. I had mentioned in a post on what I referred to as the far side of the hill, that the swimming pool, that once served as the pool where as a schoolboy going to Saint Joseph’s Institution not so far away, I had gone for swimming lessons that were conducted for our Physical Education (P.E.), was awaiting its end, hoping vainly that it would not. Alas, its end has come, and what remains where the pool had been, is now levelled with red earth that the two excavators which proudly sit atop it must have had a hand in filling.

The disused River Valley Swimming Pool seen from Fort Canning Hill in 2009 .

The entrance and exit of River Valley Swimming Pool seen early this year which is still largely intact.

The swimming pool, as I had previously posted, was built in the late 1950s by the Singapore City Council. Designed by a British architect, M. E. Crocker, it opened in 1959. Little did I know it when I was a schoolboy, the complex was a haunt of men of the alternative orientation. The swimming pool does hold many memories for my schoolmates and me. One fondly remembers frequenting the pool not because of the men, but to watch the Saint Nicholas Girls’ School swimming team train there.  The complex closed in 2003 and stood unused until the pools were filled up recently. At least, not all is lost, it does appear that the buildings that were part of the complex, are being refurbished. It is sad though to see that the pool is gone.

The life guard post of the disused swimming complex as seen through the entrance, that was still intact earlier this year.

A close up of the life guard post that is now gone.

The pools have now disappeared, levelled with the filling of red earth.

Two excavators stand proudly over the buried pools.

The magical world of the Tivoli that was on Orchard Road

Mention the name Tivoli today, and what probably comes to mind to most of us is that magical gardens set in the heart of Hans Christian Andersen’s Wonderful Copenhagen where we can be immersed in the fantasy world that Hans Christian Andersen conjured up in the many tales he told, of which at least one, his most famous, the Nightingale, was inspired by the gardens in which he was said to have been fascinated with. The beautiful setting of the amusement park, with its theatres and restaurants, and wonderful gardens, best seen in spring when one is greeted by the multitude of colours that the flowers that delightfully decorate the gardens bring, served as an inspiration not just to Andersen, but also to a certain Walt Disney for his own wonderful fantasy land. The gardens had apparently also provided the inspiration to Singapore’s own Tivoli in Orchard Road, and it was this Tivoli that would have come into the minds of many of us back in the 1970s.

Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen is a magical fantasy world that served as the inspiration for Hans Christian Andersen’s the Nightingale as well as Disneyland.

The Tivoli Coffee House, was apparently also inspired by the Tivoli Gardens and was located at the left hand corner of The Orchard, and had a sidewalk cafe atmosphere as well as a beautifully and elaborately decorated interior.

Singapore’s own Tivoli was a fantasy land of a different kind, one that transported us into a world that amused us in other ways – with a delightful menu inspired by the cuisines of Denmark and the continent, an array of beverages – including alcoholic ones, as the parasols that provided shade on the tables that spilled onto the sidewalk testified to, pastries and desserts. Tivoli in Singapore wasn’t so much there to amuse us in the way that the gardens from which it got its name would have done, but provided amusement to our palates. It was a coffee house, what would today be called a cafe. Back in the 1970s, coffee houses were everywhere, appealing to young and old in search of a banana split, a vanilla milk shake, or perhaps an iced coffee, which could be savoured in the cool comfort of the air-conditioned premises that attracted many. The Tivoli, which opened in 1971, perhaps drawing on the inspiration that its name provided, was the coffee houses of all coffee houses, serving its selection of food and beverages twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. By day, it drew couples on an outing, families out shopping, and by night it was a popular watering hole, attracting a regular crowd of locals, expatriates, and the boisterous men serving with the Australian and New Zealand forces in Singapore.

The Tivoli Coffee House was then located in a two storey building, one that was purposed built as a car showroom that housed Orchard Motors, the distributor for the General Motors (GM) brands such as Vauxhall and Chevolet, converted into a shopping complex around 1970 and named The Orchard. Located at the corner of Orchard Road and Bideford Road, on which the original wing of the Paragon now stands, the shopping complex was right next to Fitzpatrick’s supermarket and housed some upmarket shops including Charles Jourdan, The Elizabeth Arden Salon, Diethelm Furniture, Jade Palace Restaurant and Thong Sia, as well as a branch of Robina Department Store, which made an unsuccessful attempt at breaking into the local retail scene in the 1970s.

The Paragon stands in place of The Orchard which was torn down in 1980.

The Orchard Shopping Complex seen in the mid 1970s.

The area where The Orchard stood as seen today.

Since I am on this area of Orchard Road, I would also touch a little on what the rest of the area would had been like back then.

Moving down towards Scotts Road from The Orchard, which along with neighbouring Fitzpatrick’s was demolished in 1980. For those who remember, Fitzpatrick’s was fronted by a open-air car park. Its site would be occupied Promenade Shopping Centre, before Promenade was itself torn down to accommodate an extension to the Paragon (this clarifies a comment posted by a reader, JC Carino, who lived in the area on a previous post on my impressions of Orchard Road of the 1970s).

Right next to Fitzpatricks was a petrol kiosk, which can been seen in the photograph labelled “Photo 4” on Peter Chan’s post on on the petrol stations in Singapore’s CBD on the Good Morning Yesterday blog. The petrol kiosk stood in front of a squarish looking building which housed the Phone Book Company, the publisher of the telephone directory and the Yellow Pages. This site is where Tong Building stands today.

Fitzpatrick’s Supermarket with its open-air car park (Source: http://www.singas.co.uk)

The new wing of the Paragon stands where Fitzpatricks and later, the Promenade, stood.

The Tong Building which houses the Rolex Centre stands where a petrol kiosk and the Phone Book Company once stood.

Next up would be Mount Elizabeth and then Champion Motors, occupying a building that was similar to the Orchard Motors car showroom (which became The Orchard). Champion Motors building also housed Orchard Motors when it’s showroom became The Orchard. Champion was then the distributor for Volkswagen and on its site Lucky Plaza now stands. Right next to Champion stood the distinctive Chinese/styled CK Tang building, home of CK Tang. In those days, the store opened six days a week and never on a Sunday. Part of Tang Plaza now occupies the CK Tang site, with the rest of Tang Plaza sitting on a site that displaced two rows of shop houses that stood at the corner of Orchard and Scotts Roads.

Lucky Plaza stands in place of a car showroom Champion Motors – a dealer for Volkswagen cars in those days, as well as also housing Orchard Motors after it shifted out of the building that was converted into The Orchard.

The part of Tang Plaza where the distinctive CK Tang building stood.

Orchard Road at Scotts Road Junction: The curved row of shop houses next to C K Tang can be seen on the left. On the right side we can see the former Wisma Indonesia (short white building) on which stands Wisma Atria, Ngee Ann Building (where the Mont D’Or Cake Shop was) on which stands Ngee Ann City and Mandarin Hotel under construction (Source: http://www.singas.co.uk).

The Singapore Marriott Hotel and the Tang Plaza occupies the corner of Scotts and Orchard Roads where the curved row of two storey shop houses stood.

Looking down the area today, we see a totally different Orchard Road, one dominated by the cold modern steel and glass fronted shopping malls that have sprung up in place – it amazes me to think  that it wasn’t really that long ago that Orchard Road had a very different and perhaps more homely feel about it …