Beach Road Area
In the Jackson Plan, which was based on Stamford Raffles’s vision of Singapore laid out in 1822, much of Beach Road was part of the land parcel set aside for the European community. As a result, the earliest buildings on this road were European dwelling houses, mostly bungalows. A portion of Beach Road was also included in the Arab and Bugis quarters including Kampong Glam.
Beach Road, Queen Street, 1921
Along Beach Road was a row of 20 houses with large gardens, mostly inhabited by Europeans. The Singapore Club, an exclusive club reserved for expatriates of European companies, had its origins in an annex of one of these residences.
The row of old houses first built in the settlement was still standing in the early 1840s. Among the Europeans residents here were Jose d’Almeida, Mr and Mrs W. R. George, Alexander Martin, Mr and Mrs John Purvis, Captain Stephens, as well as Mr and Mrs D. S. Napier. After William H. Read got married in 1848, he also moved into one of the houses on Beach Road, near Kampong Glam.
The original shoreline was right by Beach Road until the 1840s when land reclamation began. The stretch of beach was composed of sand, mud and swamp; after reclamation, Beach Road ceased to be a coastal road. After the area ceased to be a fashionable residential enclave in the 1880s following further land reclamation, the Hainanese community then settled in the Beach Road area, forming an enclave.
Raffles Hotel began as Beach House, a private home built in the 1830s by Robert Scott. In 1878, Charles Emmerson leased the building and opened Emmerson’s Hotel. After his sudden death in 1883, the hotel closed. On 1 January 1884, it reopened as Hotel Des Indes, owned by a “W. F. Van Erp”. Later on, Raffles Boarding School took up tenancy until its expiry in September 1887.
November 2019 - Beach Road View
The Armenian Sarkies brothers Martin, Tigran, Aviet and Arshak (who joined later), already established hoteliers at the time, then leased the building from its owner, the wealthy Arab merchant Syed Mohamed Alsagoff, and announced their intention to turn it into a hotel offering fine accommodation and cuisine. On 1 December 1887, Raffles Hotel commenced operations as a 10-room hotel. While the facilities in its early years were still under development, its prime seafront location near town made it very popular with European residents and travellers.
August 2020 - Bras Besah Road View
Beach Road Camp
The first headquarters of the Singapore Volunteer Corps (SVC) was built in 1891 at Fort Fullerton, which is today the site of the Fullerton Building. In 1907, a new building constructed of wooden panels was completed at Beach Road, opposite Raffles Hotel, to serve as the headquarters of the Chinese unit of the SVC. Later, the overall headquarters of the SVC relocated here as well.
In 1930, Major-General H. L. Pritchard, the General Officer Commanding, Malaya, approved the final plans for the rebuilding of the SVC’s premises at Beach Road. Sir Cecil Clementi, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements, laid the foundation stone for the new building on 8 March 1932, and officially opened it on 4 March 1933. It became the new headquarters of the SVC as well as the headquarters of the Straits Settlement Volunteer Force (SSVF), under which the SVC had been subsumed since 1922. Additional structures were constructed in subsequent years, including an adjacent building completed in 1939 to house the new headquarters of the SVC’s Malay companies.
Cinemas
Two cinemas used to exist side by side on Beach Road: Alhambra, which opened in 1907, and Marlborough, which was in operation by January 1909. Shaw Towers is currently sited where the cinemas used to be.
Satay Club and Hoi How Road
The original Satay Club was situated alongside the theatres, on the now-expunged Hoi How Road, which was built on reclaimed land off Beach Road. In the evenings at Hoi How Road, a cluster of mainly Javanese men sold satay at the Satay Club, a popular alfresco eating place. It moved to the Esplanade in 1971. Hoi How Road was also the location of the bus depot for the Tay Koh Yat Bus Company.
Town Subdivision Numbers XI-1 and XI-9 and Town Subdivision Number XII from 1952
Liang Seah Street
Named in 1927 after the well-known Teochew millionaire, Seah Liang Seah of Chin Choon and Chin Giap, a pineapple-canning venture. The nearby Seah Street is named after the noteworthy Seah family as well.
Beach Road Police Station and Kheng Chiu Building
May 2004
Further down Beach Road was the former Beach Road Police Station and the seven-storey Kheng Chiu Building. The latter, built in 1962, is home to the Kheng Chiu Tin Hou Kong temple and the Kheng Chiu Hwee Kuan, a Hainanese clan association.
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