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.
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.
Plans of the site before and after the quarters were built.
Aerial views of the site during the time of the coolie lines and after the barracks were built (Maps from National Archives of Singapore)
What the crystal ball that is the URA Master Plan says that the Khalsa Crescent will be – a future residential development.
A walk around the former prison
The caged passageway built for the prison along the former Block 5, which became the prison’s Admin Block.
An Interview Room in the Admin Block.
A passageway between the Admin Block and the Workshop section of the prison.
A view towards the former RMN Sports Grounds, where the Rail Transit System link from Woodlands North to Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru is being built.
Inside Workshop 2, one of two prison workshops that were added during the prison days.
Inside a second workshop.
Staircase at Block 7, which was apparently a bachelors’ block.
Block 7, which had bachelors’ accommodation on the top. A Sikh cook prepared meals for the bachelors according to one former resident.
The Kitchen at Block 7.
Potential weapons have to be kept safe.
The Housing Unit – the roof was added to allow the space between the former accommodation and service blocks to be usable.
For those whose connection with Singapore’s far north go back to the 20th century, the road to the causeway was one littered with an interesting range of sights. One such sight that would certainly have caught the eye, was that of KD Malaya, a camp from which Malaysia’s navy – Tentera Laut DiRaja Malaysia (TLDM) or Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) had its fleet based at until 1979, and which was used as a TLDM training facility right until 1997.
KD Malaya from Admiralty Road West – the layout of the buildings gave an appearance of the bow of a huge ship.
The centrepiece of the base was it large parade ground, beyond which an administrative building and two barrack buildings took on the appearance of the bow of a huge ship with the camp’s flagstaff seemingly a foremast. This was quite a remarkable sight, as one came around an area of Admiralty Road West that contained Hawkins Road refugee camp and View Road Hospital (the area was featured in Secrets in the Hood Episode 5).
The former KD Malaya, seen in 2020 after Admiralty West Prison vacated it.
The wondrous sight of the former KD Malaya is now one has quite sadly been lost to the frenzy of redevelopment has now reached Singapore’s once sleepy north, with the Woodlands North Coast development beginning to take shape. While the camp’s streamline moderne inspired former administration block may have been kept for posterity, the two barrack buildings that contributed to the sight has since been demolished. Along with that, the parade square, which had provided the setback to take the wonderful view in, has also been consigned to history. This breaking of a link with our shared history with Malaysia, through the removal of a significant physical reminder of it seems especially ironic with the development nearby of a new link to Malaysia through the Rapid Transit System.
Only the administration block remains today (with a granite-faced staircase leading up to it).
I shall miss the sight of the former KD Malaya, with which I have been familiar with since my childhood. Together with the wonderful spaces and landmarks in and around it, it has provided great joy and comfort, especially with much of the rest of a Singapore being transformed in a way made it hard to identify with. While KD Malaya’s administration block is being kept, my fear is that it becomes just another building in a space overcrowded with a clutter of structures of a brave new world – as seems the case many other developments in which heritage structures are present. An example is the transformation of the joyously green space around old Admiralty House into the monstrous Bukit Canberra development into which a ridiculous amount of concrete has been poured in and around which a clutter of structures has conspired to reduce the presence of the stately arts and crafts movement inspired old Admiralty House.
A road is being built around the site.
There is also the matter of KD Malaya’s gateposts, which will have to be relocated. Whatever happens to it and wherever it will eventually be re-sited, my hope is that it doesn’t go the way of the old National Library’s gateposts. Originally left in situ to mark the site of a much loved Singaporean building, the gateposts have since suffered the indignity of being displaced and put in a position in which it has become …. just another part of the scene.
KD Malaya’s old gate.
The road to perdition. Work on the Rapid Transit System is taking place, which will cross over that body of water that is seen to Johor Bahru.
Will the former Rimau Offices / View Road Hospital (and its unusual above ground “bomb-proof” office) be the next to go?
Perched on an elevation right across from the dockyard gates, the attractive building that housed Aggie Weston’s Royal Sailors’ Rest stood as out as one of the more noticeable structures in the huge naval base in Sembawang. Designed by preeminent architectural firm Swan and Maclaren and completed in 1963, the Royal Sailors’ Rest featured 50 cabins, a restaurant, games rooms, tennis courts and a swimming pool. Established by a Royal Navy and Royal Marines charity established by Dame Agnes “Aggie” Weston whose history goes back to 1876, the sailors’ rest house was the very first to be established outside of the United Kingdom.
The former Aggie Weston’s
Endowed with a complete set of facilities to meet the needs of Royal Navy personnel, especially those coming in with the fleet being put up at nearby HMS Terror, the life of the first overseas Aggie Weston’s would close in a matter of eight years.
The Royal Sailors’ Rest opening to great fanfare in 1963
The construction of the sailors’ rest came as part of a modernisation programme for the naval base initiated in the early 1960s with a view to the continued future use of the base. Singapore, along with Aden, had been identified as important bases to be retained by the Harold Macmillan led Conservative government then in power in the UK. This came even as Britain’s development of amphibious task forces minimised the need for overseas bases. The policy was however reversed in a matter of years by the Labour government led by Sir Harold Wilson which came into power in 1964. A defence white paper published in 1966 would lead to the eventual withdrawal of British forces based in Singapore at the end of October 1971, and this meant that the first overseas Aggie Weston’s would operate for a period of only eight years.
All was however not lost for the beautifully constructed recreational complex. With the pullout, a small Australian, New Zealand and UK joint force under the ANZUK pact was established in Singapore from which both the UK and the Australians would withdraw from, resulting with the deployment of the New Zealand Defence Forces as the sole foreign force stationed in Singapore to supplement its defence needs from 1975. New Zealand NZForSEA (New Zealand Force South Easr Asia) was formed in 1974 to take on this role and the former Aggie Weston’s would find use again as Fernleaf Centre, which would be used as a recreational space, a transit centre and as quarters for unmarried members of the force. As Fernleaf Centre, the former sailors’ rest would see good use for some fifteen more years until the departure of NZForSEA in 1989. During this time, the centre featured a library that boasted of some 20,000 books.
Fernleaf Centre as a transit centre.
Subsequent to the withdrawal, the former sailors’ rest found use BY CDans (Civil Defence Association for National Servicemen) as its Sembawang Clubhouse, which morphed into the HomeTeamNS Sembawang, from 2000 until the brand new HomeTeamNS Khatib clubhouse was completed in June 2020.
Today, the site remains empty and its eventual fate remains uncertain. One can however look into the crystal ball that is the Master Plan, which has the site identified as a future housing site, possibly for high-rise public housing with a plot ratio of 3.5. Whatever it is, my hope is that the building, a landmark in Sembawang and a repository of many memories and of the area’s history since 1963, is kept.
What the Master Plan says about the future of the site.
Among the earliest permanent residences that the Admiralty’s contractor Sir John Jackson and Co put up in Sembawang as part of the construction of the naval base, are a lovely and quite unique collection of houses that are found in the vicinity of the dockyard. Built from 1928 and completed in early 1929, three categories of these were built, the largest being those intended to house “superior” officers at Kings Avenue. There were also a number built to house subordinate officers at Canada Road, and a row at Wellington Road for chargemen.
The red-brick chargemen’s residences in the former naval base.
The set of houses are quite unique in character and unlike the commonly seen PWD type designs seen in the residences erected in the naval based in the 1930s and also across many housing estates built for both the government and the military from the late 1920s into the 1930s, have a design that is quite strongly influenced by the Arts-and-Crafts architectural movement. Among their distinct features are steeply pitched hip roofs and fair-faced brick finishes.
Another view of the naval base chargemen’s residences.
It is not presently known what the future holds for these houses, which are now in their 92nd year of existence. Based on the URA Master Plan, the houses lie in an area earmarked for future residential use that is subject to detailed planning.
Residences for subordinate officers, set in the lush green surroundings that are also a feature of the naval base and many other housing estates built for European government and military officers in Singapore.
No. 10 View Road is perhaps best known as the former View Road Hospital, a branch of Woodbridge Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health) until the early 2000s. The hospital housed and treated patients undergoing rehabilitation with many finding employment in the area.
The complex, which sits on a hill close to Woodlands Waterfront, does have a much longer history. Completed in late 1941 in the western side of the Admiralty’s huge naval base, its grounds also contains a unique above-ground bomb-proof office. The building also provided accommodation for the Naval Base Police Force’s Asian policemen and their families from the late 1950s to 1972, during which time the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police – a Sikh temple that has since merged with the Gurdwara Sahib Yishun – was found on its grounds. The building has also been re-purposed in recent times as as a foreign workers dormitory.
The visit, which is supported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), provides participants with the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk through parts of the property.
When and where:
27 July 2019, 10 am to 11.30 am
10 View Rd Singapore 757918
How to register:
Do note that spaces are limited and as this is a repeat visit, kindly register only if you have not previously participated.
Participants must be of ages 18 and above.
A unique registration is required for each participant. Duplicate registrations in the same name will count as one.
Registration shall be made using the form at this link (closed as of 7.40 pm 15 Jul 2019).
A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration to all successful registrants one week prior to the visit. This email will confirm your place and also include instructions pertaining to the visit. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.
I have long thought of the Sembawang area as a final frontier, and a last part of modern Singapore in which much of yesterday remains to be discovered. Progress is however eating away at these remnants of a soon to be forgotten time; the latest bit of Sembawang being absorbed into the brave new world is the area’s last forested hill on which the grand Admiralty House is perched. Now with almost the entire western slope of the hill denuded, the settings that provided the house with its charm and also its much needed isolation for its eight decades of existence, will never again be the same.
Dark clouds on a northern horizon … the denuded western slope of the last forested hill in Sembawang.
Completed in 1940, the house with its distinctive Arts and Crafts inspired flavour, was built as the residence of the Rear Admiral, Malaya. Its scale and appearance would have been most fitting to house the commander of the then newly opened Naval Base – the largest and most important of Britain’s bases east of the Suez. It would only acquire the name best known to most, Admiralty House, when it became the residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy’s Far East Station in 1958.
Another view showing the extent of the clearance on the western slope.
Handed over to the Singapore Government in 1975 after a spell as the residence of the Commander of the ANZUK Force, the house – and the hill has since resisted the advance of concrete that has seen a new HDB town sprout up around it. Time was finally called on the hill when plans for a sports and community hub surfaced in the 2014 Master Plan. At the project’s launch in 2016, an announcement was made that some 200 of the hill’s mature trees, just over a quarter of the existing trees, would be retained – with a greater number of new trees planted. While this may be the case – even with most of the hill’s western slope now stripped bare – the terracing necessary for the project and the construction of new structures and footpaths, will permanently alter the hill’s character and add much unwelcome concrete to an already heavily concretised area.</p?
The still forested hill, seen in July 2016.
The hub, which will feature a food centre, a swimming complex, other sports and recreational facilities, is due to be opened in phases from the first half of 2020. It will eventually incorporate the former Admiralty House, a National Monument since 2002. Work on this phase will commence when Furen International School, vacates the house in 2020.
Another view of the hill in 2016.
More on the hub and the former Admiralty House can be found at:
A voice from the former View Road Hospital’s past: an ex-resident Roszelan Mohd Yusof from the days when it was the Naval Base Police Asian Quarters, revisits the units in which he lived from the 1960s up to 1972 (see video below).
Best known as a former mental hospital (used as a rehabilitation centre from 1975 to 2001 for long-term schizophrenia patients as well as to allow them to work, reintegrate and return to society), the building had prior to that been used as a quarters for Asian Naval Base Policemen and their families.
A large proportion of the residents of the quarters were Sikhs and Malays. There was also a Pakistani family, and a Bangladeshi family living there, as well as one Nepali family. The lower floor of the north wing, which housed the Chart Depot, was out of bounds to the residents, as well as the observation tower and the bomb-proof office.
The last Naval Base Police Force residents were allowed to vacate their flats in 1972, following the disbandment of the Naval Base Police Force a month after the British Pull-out. More of what is known on the building’s history is also seen in the video.
More on the former View Road Hospital and the visit that was organised to it:
The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has kindly granted permission for a series of guided State Property visits, “Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets”, the seventh of which will be to the former View Road Lodge – best known perhaps for its time as the View Road (Mental) Hospital.
View Road Lodge in January 2011.
As a branch of Woodbridge Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health) that operated from 1975 to 2001, View Road Hospital was used to house and treat recovering patients from Woodbridge. Many of View Road’s patients were in fact well enough to find work in day jobs outside of the hospital, which also operated a laundry, a cafe and a day-care centre with patients’ help.
Thought to have been completed just prior to the outbreak of war in late 1941, it is also known that the building was put to use as accommodation for Asian policemen (with the Naval Base Police Force) and their families from the end of the 1950s to around 1972. During this time, the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police – a Sikh temple, operated on the grounds. As View Road Lodge, the building was re-purposed on two occasions as a foreign workers dormitory.
The visit will also include a rare opportunity to have a look at an above ground bomb-shelter that had been constructed as part of the complex in 1941.
Sitting in relative isolation and surrounded by a lush forest of greenery for much of the 76 years of its existence, Old Admiralty House may soon find itself in less than familiar settings. The National Monument, built as a home away from home for the officer in command of the British Admiralty’s largest naval base this side of the Suez, will soon find itself become part of Sembawang’s sports and community hub.
Dawn over a world on which the sun will soon set on. Old Admiralty House in its current isolation on top of a hill, with the fast invading sea of concrete in the background.
The hub, it seems from what’s been said about it, will feature swimming pools, multi-play courts, a hawker centre, a polyclinic and a senior care centre; quite a fair bit of intervention in a quiet, isolated and of late, a welcome patch of green in the area’s fast spreading sea of concrete. Plans for this surfaced during the release of what became the 2014 Master Plan, which saw a revision on the intended location of Sembawang’s sports and recreation complex from the corner of Sembawang Avenue and Sembawang Road to the parcel of land on which the monument stands.
The original intended location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2008].
The monument, a beautifully designed Arts and Crafts movement inspired house, is without a doubt the grandest of the former base’s senior officers’ residences built across the naval base. Set apart from the other residences, it occupies well selected position placed atop a hill in the base’s southwestern corner, providing it with an elevation fitting of it, a necessary degree of isolation and privacy, and the most pleasing of surroundings – all of which will certainly be altered by the hub, notwithstanding the desire to “incorporate the natural environment and heritage of the area”.
A day time view.
The revised location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2014].
The naval base that Old Admiralty House recalls is one to which colonial and post-colonial Singapore owes much economically. With the last working remnants of the base are being dismantled, the area is slowly losing its links to a past that is very much a part of it and Singapore’s history and whatever change the creation of the sports and community hub brings to Old Admiralty House and its settings, it must be done in a way that the monument at the very least maintains its dignity, and not in a way in which it is absorbed into a mess of interventions that will have us forget its worth.
Detail of a 1945 Map of the Naval Base showing the area where ‘Admiralty House’ is. The house is identified as the ‘Admiral Superintendent’s Residence’ in the map.
From its position some 90 feet above what once was the southern fringes of the His Majesty’s Naval Establishments in Singapore, the grand and architecturally rather interesting building we know today as the Old Admiralty House would have offered its occupants with a wonderful vantage point over the area’s rolling landscape.
The former Admiralty House, likened by some to an English country manor.
Windows into a time forgotten.
Its lofty position, and the scale of the house – likened by some to that of an English manor, tells us of the rank and status of the mansion’s intended occupant, the Royal Navy’s officer in command of the huge naval base. The house, would have been one of a trio of large residences planned for at the end of the 1930s.
The front of the former Admiralty House.
The three were to house the each of the three commanding officers of the armed services, with what was to be Admiralty House built so as to permit the Officer in charge of His Majesty’s Naval Establishments in Singapore, a appointment held by the Commodore (later Rear Admiral), Malaya, to be moved on to the grounds of the base. The Commodore’s residence, had been at the then Navy House, located a long drive away in ‘Singapore’ at Woodstock Drive (which became the Grange Road end of today’s Orchard Boulevard).
Rather delightful looking smaller buildings around the house thought to have housed the commanders’ aides.
The porch.
The two other residences intended, were to be at Kheam Hock Road and in Tanglin. The one at Kheam Hock Road, was to be a replacement for Flagstaff House, the residence of the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Malaya. This residence is the one we know today as Command House, a National Monument. The Tanglin residence, which I have not been able to find further information on, was intended to be the home of the Royal Air Force’s Air Officer Commanding (AOC), Far East.
Command House at Kheam Hock Road.
As with the new Flagstaff House, the design of Admiralty House was very much influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. It is widely attributed to the illustrious architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, whose work left a mark not just in Britain, but also in New Delhi. However, there little evidence of this.
Thought to have been completed in 1940, two years after the opening of the massive King George VI graving dock – an event that marked the completion of Great Britain’s most important naval station east of the Suez – the house first occupants would have been Rear Admiral and Mrs. Thomas Bernard Drew, if they had not elected to stay on at Woodstock Drive. Rear Admiral Drew, who was posted to Singapore in February 1939 as a Commodore, Malaya, was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral in August of the same year.
Detail of a 1945 Map of the Naval Base showing the area where ‘Admiralty House’ is. The house is identified as the ‘Admiral Superintendent’s Residence’ in the map.
It was to be Rear Admiral Drew’s successor as Rear Admiral, Malaya, Ernest John “Jack” Spooner and his wife Megan, who were to be Admiralty House’s first residents, moving into the house in August 1941. Mrs Megan Spooner, née Foster, interestingly had been a renowned soprano back in Britain.
Nelson Gate at the bottom of Nelson Road at the perimeter fence of the Naval Base along Sembawang Road (photograph used with the kind permission of Mr Chan Kai Foo).
We are able to get a feel of how the house was laid out and decorated in Ms. Mary Heathcott’s article published in the 18 October 1941 edition of The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. Here, Ms Heathcott refers to the house as ‘Navy House’, but it quite certainly is a description of the Naval Base’s Admiralty House (Mrs. Megan Spooner also referred to the house as ‘Navy House’ in her diary entries):
Navy House has been built for about a year, was never occupied by the Drews as they were settled in Singapore.
It is large, pillared, cream coloured and grand and when Mrs. Spooner has finished her interior decoration should be a very elegant home indeed for Malaya’s Rear Admiral.
The dining room is furnished already, with solid walnut-polished teak furniture, sober jade green leather chairs. It has an immensely long dining table for big dinners, a small round one for less formal affairs.
A long, many windowed drawing room leads off the dining room, and this Mrs Spooner plans in Empire style, with the delicate graceful studied furniture of the period, mirrors on the walls, console tables, pastel colourings. Off this is a smaller sitting room, informal and restful.
Three hundred and fifty people were recently entertained at a cocktail party in the dining and drawing room of the house and there was no crush at all, which gives you some idea of their pleasant spaciousness.
Upstairs are the private quarters of the Spooners, a big landing sitting room where Mrs. Spooner has her desk, with its photographs of their nine-year old son, now at school in England. Here too, will be a corner settee to offset the rather difficult angles.
For most rooms of the house, there is a pleasant green vista, and from one side can be seen the Straits of Johore through a cutting in the trees.
The garden is as yet a plain green lawn, but there are plans for that too.
A balcony the private quarters open into.
What would have been the private quarters.
Possibly the reading or dining room, based on Ms. Heathcott’s description.
The ‘large, many windowed’ drawing room, used in the days of the Admiralty also as a ball room.
That it was referred to as ‘Navy House’, points to the fact that the house probably did not have an official name at its completion. There are also several references to it as ‘Admiral House’ and ‘Admiralty House’ from accounts of its early years.
The main staircase.
Geoffrey Till, in his book “Understanding Victory: Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands”, makes mention of the stay of Rear Admiral Tom Phillips, Commander-in-Chief of the hastily put together Eastern Fleet, in late 1941, at “the new, rambling, vaguely “Arts and Crafts” Admiralty House in Sembawang, Singapore”, identifying Phillips’ hostess as Mrs. Megan Spooner (Admiral Phillips stay at ‘Navy House’ is also mentioned in Mrs. Spooner’s diary).
A doorway on the upper level.
We also find in another book, “Course for Disaster: From Scapa Flow to the River Kwai”, the recollections of its author, Richard Pool, of his meetings with Mrs. Spooner as a naval officer. One of these encounters was at “Admiralty House in Singapore” on the occasion of a cocktail party Admiral and Mrs. Spooner had hosted, “the day after (HMS) Repulse arrived at the Naval Base”. Pool was a naval officer serving on the ill fated HMS Repulse, and was to survive its sinking not long after that meeting.
The balcony the private quarters’ opens into with the drawing room below.
The front balcony.
Both the accounts are related to the events of December 1941, the month in which hostilities between the Britain and Japan rapidly escalated. Little did Admiral Spooner or his guest at Admiralty House, Admiral Phillips, know of it then, but fate was soon to deal each with a cruel blow. Phillips fate was sealed on board his flagship HMS Prince of Wales in the days that followed. Both the flagship, which Phillips went down with, and the HMS Repulse were sunk off Kuantan in the days that followed Britain’s declaration of war with Japan.
What used to be an open sitting area that opened up to the front balcony.
Admiral Spooner, whose last days in Singapore was spent organising the evacuation of civilians, attempted an escape in a motor launch two days before Singaore was to fall. The launch was tracked and attached by the Japanese and having run aground on the island of Cebia (or Tjeba) near Pulau Bangka off Sumatra, Spooner was to spend his last days there, dying in April 1942. He was survived by Mrs. Spooner, who was evacuated on 10 February, and an eight year old son James, who had been left behind in Britain to attend school.
It was only after the war, that the house was to provide the calm its seclusion was meant to give. There are suggestions that it was used as a residence of the Commodore Superintendent of the Dockyard, although I do have my doubts. What is known is that it became the residence of the Flag Officer, Malayan Area as ‘Nelson House’ from September 1948. The transfer of the British Far East Fleet Headquarters to Singapore required the Flag Officer to vacate the residence at 51 Grange Road so that it could then be used to house the Commander-in-Chief (C in C), Far East Station, as ‘Admiralty House’.
The house has been likened to an English country manor.
This arrangement was to last until March 1958, when a reorganisation of British forces in the Far East meant that the Flag Officer’s appointment was assumed under the responsibility of the C in C. With this, ‘Nelson House’ became the official residence of the C in C and was renamed ‘Admiralty House’. The old ‘Admiralty House’ at Grange Road was later to be demolished, making way at the end of the 1960s for Raffles Institution’s new campus. It was in the days of ‘Admiralty House’, at least in the 1960s, that open houses were to be held annually. This allowed servicemen to visit the grounds for a swim in the pool and maybe have a picnic in the garden.
Old Admiralty House in Grange Road, which was demolished to make way for Raffles Institution at the end of the 1960s (online catalogue of the National Archives).
A member of the Naval Base Police receiving an award at Admiralty House (photograph used with the kind permission of Alfa Andy).
The pullout of British forces in 1971 and the closure of the naval base saw Admiralty House become the residence of the Commander of the ANZUK Force. It was during this time, in 1972, that Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh had lunch at the house, as part of a visit to ANZUK forces in Singapore. Admiralty House, also known as ANZUK House, as the official residence of the ANZUK forces commander, was to accommodate only two commanders. The force was disbanded in 1975 following decisions by first the Australian, and then British governments’ to pull out of the arrangements. The last to leave was Air Vice-Marshal Richard Wakeford in early 1975, following which the keys to the house was passed to the Singapore government.
Another view of what I think was the dining room.
Much has happened since the house saw its last military officer. Newspaper reports in May 1976 point to it being rented by an undisclosed local company for S$4750 per month. It was turned into a restaurant and guest house that opened in 1978, which apparently was rather popular with an occupancy rate of 90%. In 1988, plans were announced to turn the building and its grounds into a country club with a caravan park. The application was not approved, and it was relaunched in mid 1989 as the Admiralty Country House. The house and its grounds did eventually play host to a country club as Yishun Country Club in 1991, and then from 2001 to 2006, as the Karimun Admiralty Country Club. It was during this time that the building was gazetted as a National Monument in 2002.
An old telephone junction box inside the house.
Over the years, and changes in use, the grounds of the building has seen several changes. One change is to Old Nelson Road, the roadway leading up to the house. That used to be Nelson Road (it was renamed in the 1970s, possibly to avoid confusing it with the Nelson Road in the Kampong Bahru area – since expunged), and a through road. The south end of the road was at Nelson Gate, which opened up to Sembawang Road. The road was truncated in the late 1970s when Sembawang Road was widened and the gate removed. There would also have been a helipad in the grounds at the building’s north, probably added in the 1950s.
Evidence of the through road seen in an old lamp post. The post is one of three that can be found on the premises.
The grounds today also see more recently introduced structures such as an entrance gate, a pond, buildings around the swimming pools. Accommodation and classroom blocks were also added by the Furen International School (FIS), which since 2012 has run a boarding school for international students on the premises. As part of the arrangement for the lease of the building, FIS was required to repair and restore the building, which they have done so rather beautifully. This required a huge investment (in the order of a seven digit number) and replacement of fittings true to the original style employed in the building, where these had been previously removed.
What remains of a flagstaff moved in May 1970 from Kranji Wireless Station.
Windows and brass fittings had to be recreated as part of the restoration effort.
Speaking of the swimming pools, one – the deeper pool, is said to have been built by 200 Japanese Prisoners of War (POWs) in 1945. There is another suggestion however, that it was the deepest swimming pool in Singapore and it was built by British POWs in the hope that their captors, who were accommodated in the house, drown during their morning swim!
The swimming pool said to have been constructed by Japanese POWs.
Another reminder of the war on the grounds is a bomb shelter located across the driveway of the building. This was rediscovered in 1990. The shelter is rather small and was perhaps built to accommodate the main occupants of the buildings. Light fittings can be found in the shelter as well as what remains of a squatting water closet.
What remains of a squatting water closet.
Inside the bomb shelter.
Beautifully restored, the building, and its adjoining and auxiliary buildings are now ones we can and should marvel at. Much is in evidence of the Arts and Crafts influence, including the exposed brick seen on the house’s façade at the upper level and the “high-hipped roof” with overhanging eaves that is mentioned in the Preservation of Sites and Monuments write up on the monument. Also in evidence are the generously provided windows and ventilation openings – all designed to maximise comfort in the tropical heat and humidity.
The exposed brickwork on the upper levels.
The reception area with evidence of its generous ventilation openings.
What is particularly interesting is how some of the service rooms are attached to the main building – these typically were detached. It appears that these were where the kitchens and other service rooms were from which access was provided via the back of the main house into the dining room and to the bedrooms upstairs through a narrow staircase. Also around the main house are smaller single storey detached buildings, thought to have accommodated the aides to the commanders.
The narrow stairway up to the bedrooms intended for the service staff.
The house today remains as a reminder of what once was. Much of the area around it has seen a transformation. The vantage point it offers is no longer ones of green rolling hills but of the structures of a growing population on an island state that has benefited greatly from the huge naval establishment the occupants of the house presided over.
The view it now commands is not one of a rolling landscape but of a strange new world that has replaced the naval base its occupant once presided over.
While the building itself is protected as a monument, what surrounds it is not. What the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s 2014 Master Plan reveals is that the hill Admiralty House is perched on, or at least a large part of it, will be given to much needed sports and recreation facilities in an area where the pace of public residential developments is very quickly picking up. It may not be long before much of the green around it – the setting Admiralty House was meant to be given, is lost to grey. We do however, still have that opportunity to celebrate the house and the setting it is in, before that, like in the case of many others before it, is lost to us forever.
The Spooners’ residence was identified as ‘Navy House’ and not Canberra House as is popularly believed.
The vermilion bridge, of a style and colour that is distinctively Japanese, stands almost garishly out of place in the expansive garden of an equally generously sized colonial house. Set in an area whose flavour is overwhelmingly one of the days of the empire, the bridge, and the landscaped area it arches across, is said to have been constructed through the efforts of Japanese Prisoners-of-War (POWs). It is one of at least two structures that the POWs built in an area that was at the heart of the huge British naval base, the other being a swimming pool on the grounds of Old Admiralty House.
The house with the bridge, is one of many in the “black and white” style, commonly employed in the construction of homes for the colony’s senior administrators and military men, to be found in the area. Along with several residences with red-brick faces influenced by the arts and crafts movement, the “black and white” houses, in lush green and spacious surroundings, served as married quarters for the base’s senior officers. The house, the largest in its cluster and located so that it commanded a view of the base’s former stores basin and dockyard, was reserved for the dockyard’s most senior officer, the Commodore Superintendent.
An aerial view of the former Commodore Superintendent’s residence (posted in the Old Sembawang Naval Base Facebook Group).
The dockyard passed into the hands of the then newly formed Sembawang Shipyard in 1968 and the base saw its last days in 1971 with the British pullout, and the ownership of the house was transferred to the State, but with an arrangement that it, along with several other similar property be made available for use to the United Kingdom and also to Australian and New Zealand Forces deployed in Singapore under the Five Power Defence Arrangement. It perhaps is due to this that the house, which subsequent to the pullout, served as the residence of Commander of New Zealand’s Force SEA, and the brightly coloured bridge, set in an area that the the URA’s 2014 Masterplan tells us is “Subject to Detailed Planning”, still stands today in a part of Singapore in which the winds of change are now blowing ever stronger.
An area of Singapore that still has much history buried under it is the area where the former British Naval Base was. Under parts of the former base, which covered an area stretching from the Causeway in Woodlands to what is today Sembawang Park, lies several underground structures, one of which is a the so-called Attap Valley bunker that has recently been brought to light.
The entrance to the Attap Valley bunker below Talbot’s Hill.
Worshipping a new religion? Participants on a heritage tour to the site examining part of a ventilation system.
The bunker, opened to the public for the first time today, is the last surviving structure of an armament depot constructed by the British within the huge Naval Base in the Talbot’s Hill and Attap Valley area. A ammunition and armament storage magazine, specifically Magazine No. 4, it was one of seven other bomb-proof magazines that were built into Talbot’s Hill by the British before 1942.
An extract of a 1945 map of the Naval Base showing the area and the layout of the ammunition depot, including the seven magazines under Talbot’s Hill (click to enlarge).
The National Heritage Board (NHB), which has been studying the site since April 2014, has also established with the help of a 1945 map of the Naval Base, that the magazines were part of a network of eighteen bunkers, warehouses and workshops spread over the Attap Valley site, that formed the Royal Naval Armament Depot.
The tour group being led into the bunker.
The passage to the storage area.
Evidence points to the magazine, which is the size of two 5-room HDB flats, being used by the Japanese during the occupation – a cache of Japanese weapons and ammunition was found by MINDEF when they used the site for the Sembawang Ammunition Depot.
The storage area where corrugated ceiling reinforcements can be seen along with a gantry hoist.
What appears to be a light fitting from the time of the bunker’s construction mounted on the ceiling.
According to NHB, part of the floor of the bunker, now a mess of mud and water, would have had rail tracks running over them to allow the ammunition to be moved in and out, accounting for the rusty colour of the mud and water in the bunker. While there is nothing left of the tracks to be found, there are several fixtures and fittings that might have originally been there at the time of its completion. This includes vents from an all important ventilation system, light fixtures, and pipes. A travelling gantry hoist, complete with a sign giving its Safe Working Load rating, can be seen in the inner chamber where the ammunition would have been stored. Access into the inner chamber is via a curved passageway designed so as explosions could be contained.
Talbot’s Hill and the surviving magazine under it now lies well within a fenced up area of land, which was returned to the State by MINDEF when the depot was decommissioned in 2002. Access to it is only via the NHB tours, being organised as part of a Battle of Singapore commemoration that coincides with the 73 anniversary of the Fall of Singapore and also the 70 anniversary of the liberation in September 1945. More information on this, including the Case Files from the Singapore War Crimes Tribunal Exhibition scheduled to open next week at the National Museum of Singapore, can be found at the NHB website.
More photographs of the bunker and its surroundings
Postscript
An account relating to the last days of the Royal Naval Armament Depot before the Fall of Singapore: A Singapore Story – 1942.
A view from a block of new housing over to colonial bungalows that had once served as the somewhat grand residences of the senior officers of the British Admiralty stationed at the Naval Base in the north of Singapore. The base, which stretched from the old Seletar Road (which was renamed Sembawang Road in 1939) to where the causeway is, occupied some 2,300 acres or 930 ha. of land along the northern coastline. As was a feature of the British military bases set up in Singapore, generously sized bungalows as well as flats were built to serve as residences for the senior military personnel.
The rolling hills of the area around which the bulk of the housing was built, on the eastern fringes of the base, did provide a wonderful setting that was close to the sea for the residences to be built on. Well spaced apart around the area, the former residences are set in the openness of lush green yards that would even then have been a luxury only the more fortunate would have been able to enjoy. The spacious and airy bungalows of the senior Admiralty, many of which are still around today, are particularly impressive, built in a style typical of the purpose – many were of single storey design and set on on a stilted foundation to allow added ventilation in the oppressive heat of the tropics, as well as to keep snakes and termites out.
The beautiful setting in which the ‘black and white houses’ of Sembawang find themselves in.
These ‘black and white houses’ a term we in Singapore commonly use to refer to these bungalows due to their appearance (thought to be influenced by the Tudor revival movement that coincided with the first appearances of such bungalows in Singapore), are similar to those found other several areas in Singapore associated with former military bases. This includes the former RAF Seletar (Seletar Airbase) where 32 such bungalows are now slated for conservation at (see: Straits Times report dated 11 Feb 2014).
Some 400 former residences including low-rise flats in the area were handed over to Singapore in 1971 when the British pulled their forces out. Many saw use by the ANZUK forces and later the New Zealand ForceSEA, with some currently used by the US Navy to house personnel based at the Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific (COMLOG WESTPAC) and the Navy Region Center Singapore (NRCS) at the former Naval Stores Basin. Several units are also being rented out by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA).
The houses and the undulating and green landscape, provides the area not just with much of its laid back and somewhat old world charm, but also a feeling of space that is lacking in other parts of built-up Singapore. There is also that window the housing units, many of which came up during the construction the naval base in the 1930s, does also provide into a significant part of a past we might otherwise all too quickly forget.
A view along the Straits of Johor, in the area where the Malaysian Navy had once maintained a base which served as their main base until 1979, some 15 years following the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. The view, taken at 7.41 pm on 25 August 2013, is one taken across what would have been the west end of the huge British naval base towards what would have been Rotherham Gate to the left of the picture, the Causeway in the middle and Johor Bahru in Malaysia to the right. The jetty seen in the photograph is the Shell or Woodlands Jetty which is still in use. The area is one I made a first acquaintance with back in the early 1970s, after the area had been opened up following the withdrawal of British forces in 1971. That was when the since demolished derelict Ruthenia Oiling Jetty, served as one of two places along Singapore’s northern coastline to which my father would take me to drop crab nets from. The area has since been remade and is now referred to as the Woodlands Waterfront.
Tucked away on a hill some 38 metres above street level is a disused building that has gained a reputation for all the wrong reasons. Better known to most for what it has most recently been used for – the View Road Hospital, it has an uncertain beginning and was in the last days of the Naval Base, a barracks to house Asians in service with the Naval Base Police.
The Naval Base Police, established at the completion of the Naval Base in 1938/39, was disbanded when the British forces pulled out in 1971. It counted in its ranks a large contingent of Sikh policemen, and later Pakistanis and Malays. A Sikh temple, the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police has been closely associated with the force and from the time the barracks was established at View Road in 1959-60 until 1971-72, that was located right next to the barracks. The temple merged with another temple the Gurdwara Sahib Guru Khalsa Sabha Sembawang (Sembawang Sikh Temple) with the disbandment of the Naval Base Police in 1971. The Sembawang Sikh Temple in turn merged with the Gudwara Sahib Jalan Kayu as the Gurdwara Sahib Yishun and is now located at Yishun.
A July 1941 photograph showing Rimau Offices and Accommodation in the early stages of construction (National Archives UK via National Archives of Singapore online).
The gurdwara, at its closing in October 1971 (photo courtesy of Sheila Singh Sidhu).
The former View Road Hospital’s building goes a little further back. It would seem that it may have been completed in late 1941 (a 1944 map of the Naval Base – based on information developed prior to the outbreak of war – has it identified as the uncompleted “Rimau Offices”). A photograph dated 21 July 1941 from the National Archives UK shows in the very early stages of construction and another showing it almost complete in 1941. A photograph of an above-ground bomb-proof office on the site – above-ground possibly because it was built in a hurry, shows it in the late stages of completion in July 1941. Also an updated map of the Naval Base printed in 1945 shows the building completed.
Rimau Offices nearing completion in 1941 (National Archives UK via National Archives of Singapore online).
Rimau Bomb-Proof Office nearing completion in July 1941 (National Archives UK via National Archives of Singapore online).
AA gun positions and buildings around the Bukit Rimau area, including Rimau Offices from a 1944 intelligence report.
From a 1968 edition of the map of the Naval Base, we see that it was the Naval Base Police Asian Quarters with the words “Old Maritime HQ” in parenthesis – indicating that it was built for either the RAF or the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy for use it as a command centre for maritime air operations (hence the observation tower found on the building and also the “bomb-proof office” next to it). An RAF proposal to use it as such fell through in the 1950s due to signal interference at from nearby SUARA Wireless Transmitting Station. It would have only been around 1960, possibly the late 1950s, that the building was converted into a much needed barracks for Asian Naval Police personnel, many of whom had taken to renting accommodation outside the base due to shortage of quarters.
1944 War Office drawn Naval Base Map based on pre-war information.
Aug 1945 Naval Base Map showing building in place.
Following the pullout of the British forces, the building was converted for use as an secondary hospital to supplement the overcrowded Woodbridge Hospital, providing rehabilitation for recovering mental patients, particularly those with chronic schizophrenia. The first batch of 34 patients were moved into the 250 bed hopsital in September 1975. The rehabilitation programme included providing skills training to the patients to allow the patients to return to society. A large group of about 100 would in fact be permitted to work outside the hospital, which was already running a laundry, a nursery and a cafe, in the day. The hospital was shut in 2001. The building has seen use as the View Road Lodge – a foreign workers’ dormitory – which was in use until a few years back. The building today lies unoccupied.
Seen against the light of dawn by the Tebrau or Johor Strait is a fence at the beach in Sembawang. More recently erected, it marked, for some reason, a long discarded boundary between what used to be a huge British naval base, vacated in 1971 and the area to its east, once occupied by coastal villages, the last of which was cleared in the later half of the 1990s. The fence came down two weeks ago, coinciding with the completion of “renewal” work at Sembawang Park which was developed at the end of the 1970s on the eastern edge of the former base. For long spared from the huge wave of development that has swept across much of the island of Singapore, the Sembawang area is in the midst of change as new public housing and luxury private residential developments in the area will transform what was an area with a well known laid-back feel and old world charm into another well populated and overly manicured neighbourhood in new Singapore.
The view northwestwards down the Straits of Johor from Kampong Wak Hassan is one which would have once looked across to the part of the strait where the huge naval base which was completed in 1938 by the British. The base which stretched from what is Sembawang Park today all the way along the strait to what today is the west end of Woodlands Waterfront close to the Causeway, was opened up in 1971, allowing public access to what was a restricted area.
The view down the Strait at 6.52 am this morning.
The area is one I have had many interactions with since the 1970s. The jetty seen in the photograph, is one I spent many nights at fishing for crabs as was another jetty at the west end of the former base – the then already derelict Ruthenia Oiling Jetty which has since been demolished. The 1970s were interesting times for the area, with the opening up of it allowing some parts of the area to be exploited for non-military use. One use of a small part of the area one was perhaps one we in modern Singapore have largely forgotten, a reminder of a period of South-East Asian history when times were less certain. This particular use will be one of the subjects of an exploration by two popular television personalities for an episode on the Woodlands area of a Chinese TV series, Secrets in the Hood, to be televised on Channel U on 3 September 2013. Do look out for it and other interesting hidden secrets from neighbourhoods across the heartlands of Singapore in the series which will air from 6 August to 13 September 2013 in the 9 to 10 pm slot.
A popular TV personality will be exploring the area in an episode of a Chinese television series which will be aired on 3 September on Channel U.
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.
6.55 pm, 26 April 2013. The sun sets over an area which was once part of the huge British Naval base in the north of Singapore . The base which stretched some six and a half kilometres from where Sembawang Park is today across to the area close to the Causeway, was vacated in 1971. A commercial shiprepair yard, Sembawang Shipyard, was established in 1968, taking over the facilities of the former Naval Dockyard for a token sum of S$1. The yard, the north wall and finger pier of which is seen in the photograph, and the former Stores Basin – now used as a US Navy logistics facility and cargo berth, are the last working parts of the former base still with us. Based on the Land Use Plan recently released to support the somewhat unpopular Population White Paper, the yard will move its operations to the west of Singapore to free the land it now occupies for future development – a move which will erase a significant part of the memory of the role the area played in Singapore’s economic development
Together with 9 other bloggers and thanks to Tigerair Philippines and the Philippine Department of Tourism, I found myself on a dream trip to Boracay in July 2013. Read about the fantastic experience I had at Boracay Island Escapade or on my blog.
Courtesy of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), I had the opportunity to have a 4 day adventure in Hong Kong with 9 other bloggers. To read our collective Hong Kong Travel Blog entries, please click on the icon below:
Thought to have been completed just prior to the outbreak of war in late 1941, it is also known that the building was put to use as accommodation for Asian policemen (with the Naval Base Police Force) and their families from the end of the 1950s to around 1972. During this time, the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police – a Sikh temple, operated on the grounds. As View Road Lodge, the building was re-purposed on two occasions as a foreign workers dormitory.
![The original intended location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2008].](https://thelongnwindingroad.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ura-master-plan-2008.png)
![The revised location of the sports and recreation complex in Sembawang (area shaded in light green) [URA Master Plan 2014]](https://thelongnwindingroad.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/ura-master-plan-2014.png)
The Long and Winding Road 