A little slice of Malaya in Spooner Road

A great place to tell a story of Singapore’s transport history is Spooner Road, a rather nondescript road branching off Kampong Bahru Road in two directions. Its story, spanning almost a hundred years, covers the coming and going of different modes of transport, and the arrival and departure of a little slice of Malaya.

***

The railway came to Singapore as the Singapore-Kranji Railway in 1903, but a good part of the track was realigned by 1932. The new southern terminus of the railway, by then known as the Federated Malay States Railway (FMSR), was Singapore or Tanjong Pagar Station.

Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, 1932. Credit: Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

To accommodate the station and railway yards, an area of mostly open land between Kampong Bahru Road and Keppel Road in the south of the island, next to the Tanjong Pagar docks and wharves, was chosen.

Below is a map of the area in 1923, before the railway track was realigned. Much of the open land was known as “Western Reclamation”, perhaps because the area was once marshy, and had been reclaimed. On hillier ground stood the bungalows of Raeburn Park and Spottiswoode Park.

Credit: The National Archives (United Kingdom).

Below is a map of the area in 1934, after the railway pulled in.

Credit: Farish Ahmad Noor.

To create space for the railway yards and accommodation for railway staff, part of Kampong Bahru Road was realigned to the west; most of the original Kampong Bahru Road, now split in two segments by the railway track, was renamed Kampong Lama Road and Spooner Road (shaded blue) respectively.

“Kampong Lama” means “Old Village”, as compared to “Kampong Bahru” (“New Village”); Spooner Road was named after Charles Edwin Spooner, the first General Manager of the FMSR (below). This honour was posthumous - Spooner had died in 1909, aged 55.

To underscore the fact that the railway was Malayan, accommodation blocks north of the railway yards were named after Malayan sultanates - there were Perak Flats, Selangor Flats, Pahang Flats, Johore Flats, Kedah Flats, Kelantan Flats. There was also an FMSR Running House or Running Bungalow, a rest stop for train drivers.

Credit: Farish Ahmad Noor.

Below is a map of the area in 1970.

Credit: Survey Department, Singapore.

What’s intriguing about the map is that the location of the FMSR Running Bungalow had shifted to its present location, closer to the Kampong Bahru junction. Online articles state that the bungalow was built in the 1930s, but they omit this shift in location. As detailed maps of the area are difficult to come by, I am not sure when exactly the move took place. For now, looking at the 1934 and 1970 maps, I can conclude that the present FMSR Running Bungalow was erected sometime between these two years.

There’s more. A search of the newspaper archives reveals that other flats in the area were named after more Malayan states - there were the Negri Sembilan Flats and Perlis Flats.

A 1957 Straits Times article listing polling stations includes the Malayan names of Spooner Road flats. Credit: Singapore Press Holdings.

Today, just two blocks of flats stand in the area - Kemuning (“Orange Jasmine”) and Melati (“Jasmine”), or 1 and 2 Spooner Road. The footprints of these blocks are too close to the footprints of the Perak and Selangor Flats for all four buildings to have existed at the same time. Hence, I deduce that the Perak and Selangor Flats - and possibly the other flats named after Malayan states - were demolished to make way for the Kemuning and Melati blocks.

When did this urban redevelopment take place? The Perak Flats last appeared in the newspapers in 1964; the Selangor Flats, 1977. My guess is that sometime after 1977, the demolitions took place, followed by the construction of the Kemuning and Melati blocks. None of the blocks with Malayan state names has survived to the present.

In the late 1980s, a second major channel of transport arrived in the area - the Ayer Rajah Expressway, running westwards from East Coast Parkway. It was laid down parallel to the railway track, past Spooner Road and Kampong Lama Road. Not long after, the latter was expunged; the site is a carpark for Keppel Distripark today.

Ayer Rajah Expressway, 1986. Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

Below is a map of the area in 1991. (It is a pity that street directories did not show railway buildings.)

Sometime between 1993 and 2007, Spooner Road was realigned into two branches. One branch served the Kemuning and Melati blocks; another served the railway yard.

Below is a map of the area in 2007.

The junction of Spooner Road (left) and Kampong Bahru Road (right) in 2008.

Credit: Google Maps.

Significant changes came to the area from 2011, after a 108-year era of rail in Singapore came to an end. The railway track from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands closed for good; the rail operator, Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), returned to Singapore the land on which the railway yard and surrounding buildings stood.

Once Singapore took back the land, it was only a matter of time before redevelopment happened. The track was removed; the yard and its buildings demolished.

The junction of Spooner Road (left) and Kampong Bahru Road (right) in 2013. On the left, the railway building has disappeared.

Credit: Google Maps.

Between 2016 and 2019, the stretch of Kampong Bahru Road in the area was widened from two lanes to four. Meanwhile, Spooner Road was extended to the east to serve another mode of transport - by 2019, Kampong Bahru Bus Terminal opened. Spooner Road was once named because of rail, but is now associated with buses.

Kampong Bahru Road in 2019. It has been widened, and the old junction with Spooner Road has shifted.

Credit: Google Maps.

What has stood the test of time - for now - are the Kemuning and Melati blocks.

***

Entering Spooner Road, I passed a crumbling police post, with the sign “Polis” reminding me that it was built by the Malaysians, not Singaporeans.

The post originally guarded an entrance to the railway yard, but because of the realignment of Spooner Road, it now “guards” the way to the Kemuning and Melati blocks.

The post was in a sorry state, with rubbish strewn all over.

I initially thought the post was as old as the railway itself, but according to Google Street View, it was built very recently, sometime between 2008 and 2013. Nevertheless, I hope it can be conserved as part of Singapore’s railway heritage.

The Running Bungalow. Up to 2018, it was used as a Modern Montessori pre-school, but it presently lies empty.

The Kemuning and Melati blocks, painted a delicious kueh-like green and yellow. Currently, they are rental flats.

The Kemuning block - 1 Spooner Road.

The blocks, at least four decades old, have been deprived of the usual Housing & Development Board (HDB) upgrading, making them an urban time capsule: Old doors and grilles, window shutters, old lifts with no windows, laundry racks for the ground-floor units.

There is an open-air carpark between the two blocks (I was facing the Melati block here.)

The Melati block - 2 Spooner Road.

The Melati block as seen from Kampong Bahru Road.

The walkway from Kampong Bahru Road down to the Melati block - the blocks are on lower terrain than the road.

The ground-floor lift lobby of the Melati block.

The old lifts.

Like other old blocks, the common corridor faces out.

And like other old blocks, the lift lobbies are spacious.

The future facing the past - the Melati block offers a good view of the upcoming Avenue South Residence condominium project at 1 Silat Avenue, with two towering 56-storey blocks.

According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s 2019 Master Plan, the area is slated for housing, but “subject to detailed planning”.

Credit: Urban Redevelopment Authority.

The Spooner Road area is part of the future Greater Southern Waterfront. It is a short distance from Cantonment MRT Station, which will be integrated with the former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station by 2026. I can’t envision the area not being redeveloped in the future, which could entail the demolition of the Kemuning and Melati blocks, and further realignment of Spooner Road. But I hope some form of railway heritage can be retained.

Ulu Sembawang, the country

Up to the 1990s, Ulu Sembawang was a sprawling expanse of rolling hills and low-lying ponds, a rural backwater known as “the country”.

Ulu Sembawang in 1986. Credit: Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

Where was Ulu Sembawang? It was the upriver portion of the Sungei Sembawang, bounded by the trunk roads of Sembawang Road to the east, and Mandai Road to the south.

Gradually, most of this was lost. Much of the west of historic Ulu Sembawang became part of Woodlands town, while much of the east was locked up inside Sembawang Air Base, the chief defence facility of the north.

There remains a glimpse into the past, though - a short stretch along the Ulu Sembawang Park Connector, where the Mandai Birds Sanctuary used to be. The rough location on the park connector is marked with a pink dot below.

Credit: Singapore Land Authority.

The sanctuary moved out by 2019, leaving the gently sloping land fallow. Grass and shrub have taken over.

The result is a breathtaking vista of open wilderness that stretches to the horizon. I’m told hikers flock here at dawn to catch the sunrise. The scenery is no less beautiful in the evening.

Treasuring this while it lasts.

Possibly Singapore’s shortest road

This is Jalan Ulu Seletar, possibly Singapore’s shortest road.

The road, off city-bound Sembawang Road, is around 5 metres in length, only slightly longer than an average-sized car. In fact, if not for the road sign proclaiming its existence, I would have mistaken it for a parking lot.

I can’t imagine another road shorter than this. Of course, it wasn’t always this way.

Jalan Ulu Seletar is at least a century old. It appears on a 1923 map as an unnamed track skirting around a hill 105 feet in height; the track is highlighted blue.

Base picture credit: The National Archives (United Kingdom).

The hill was north of Seletar Village, also known as Chan Chu Kang, later renamed Nee Soon Village; it was west of mangrove swamps lining the shores of the Sungei Seletar, the area’s largest river. The track most probably served the rubber plantation in the area, ending in a rubber factory to the north.

The track was named in July 1948, as one of nine roads in the rural districts, three of them in Sembawang.

As reported in The Straits Times: “The three new roads at Sembawang are Jalan Ulu Seletar at the 10½ milestone, Jalan Kuala Sempang (Simpang) at the 12¾ milestone, and Jalan Ulu Sembawang at the 13 milestone.

“One (Rural Board) member remarked: ‘These names in Malay seem quite a mouthful.’

“Another retorted: ‘They are descriptive and I consider them apt titles to the district they serve.’”

Credit: Singapore Press Holdings.

And so the names stuck. I would consider “Jalan Ulu Seletar” to be appropriate for the area, because “Ulu” was a local term for “upriver”, and the road was in the upriver portion of the Sungei Seletar.

Below is a map of the area in 1953. The rubber plantations which Jalan Ulu Seletar served have disappeared, replaced by “unclassified minor cultivation” (M. C.) and cleared land (C. L.).

Base picture credit: Survey Department, Singapore.

Two years later, in 1955, a surau was erected along the road to serve the community. As it was near Nee Soon Village, it was named Surau Nee Soon Jalan Ulu Seletar.

In 1961, the surau was expanded and upgraded to a mosque to cater to the growing number of worshippers. It was also renamed Masjid Ahmad Ibrahim, after the Assemblyman for Sembawang, who had contributed to efforts to upgrade the surau. (This despite the mosque being in the constituency of Nee Soon, not Sembawang.) Ahmad Ibrahim would pass away the following year of an illness, aged just 35.

Ahmad Ibrahim.

Below is a map of the area in 1970. There was a village along much of the length of the road; Masjid Ahmad Ibrahim was most probably the building highlighted red.

Base picture credit: Survey Department, Singapore.

The present address of the mosque is 15 Jalan Ulu Seletar, even though it is at the junction of Sembawang Road and Jalan Ulu Seletar. The reason is because Sembawang Road in the area used to curve around hills. Up to the mid-1970s, the mosque was a short distance from the Sembawang Road junction. However, between 1976 and 1978, the stretch of Sembawang Road in the area was straightened for the sake of motor traffic. Hence, a short length of Jalan Ulu Seletar was cut off by the new, straightened Sembawang Road, and the mosque ended up at the new junction.

Below is a map of the area in 1978. While Jalan Ulu Seletar is in blue, the former curved part of Sembawang Road is in yellow, while the cut-off portion of Jalan Ulu Seletar is in green.

The yellow and green portions remained on maps until 1991, after which I assume they were mostly expunged. A small curve has survived, but is off limits, inside Nee Soon Camp.

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

I found a good photo of Jalan Ulu Seletar which is dated around 1980, but it contains a little mystery.

Credit: Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

This looks like the Sembawang Road junction, but the large body of water in the background looks too close to the junction. Maps tell me the Sungei Seletar and ponds near its shores would have been further away from the junction. And Jalan Ulu Seletar never shared a junction with another major road.

Anyway, below is a map of the area in 1991. By now, Jalan Ulu Seletar was hemmed in by Yishun Avenue 1 to the north and Lentor Avenue to the east, while the Sungei Seletar had been dammed into a reservoir known as Lower Seletar Reservoir today.

The last of Jalan Ulu Seletar’s villagers vacated their homes by 1993. Thereafter, most of the road was expunged for private developments served by new roads such as Springside Road, Springside View, and Springside Avenue. Only a short segment of around 50 metres from the Sembawang Road junction survived to serve Masjid Ahmad Ibrahim.

Masjid Ahmad Ibrahim today.

Up to 2019, the road seemed accessible to motor vehicles, at least on Google Street View. One of the two lanes was used for parking. However, after 2020, the road looked closed to motor traffic.

My guess is that the need for COVID-19 safety check-ins for mosque goers necessitated the closure of the road, allowing people to queue outside the entrance.

On the left is Springside Park; on the right is Jalan Ulu Seletar, now closed to motor traffic, next to the entrance of Masjid Ahmad Ibrahim.

The closed road is now used for mosque goers to queue up outside the mosque.

As a result, the only stretch of road still accessible to motor vehicles is a roughly 5-metre segment next to the original road - and that is the present Jalan Ulu Seletar.

And thus concludes the story of how possibly Singapore’s shortest road came to be.