River Valley
Encyclopedia
Urban planning areas in Singapore
Singapore is currently divided into 55 urban planning areas by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, organised into five regions. A Development Guide Plan is then drawn up for each planning area, providing for detailed planning guidelines for every individual plot of land throughout the country.The...
within the Central Area
Central Area
In Singapore, the Central Area or Central Business District contains the core financial and commercial districts, including eleven urban planning areas, namely Downtown Core, Marina East, Marina South, Museum, Newton, Orchard, Outram, River Valley, Rochor, Singapore River and Straits View as...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
's central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
.
The River Valley Planning Area is defined by the region bounded by Orchard Boulevard, Devonshire Road and Eber Road to the north, Oxley Rise and Mohamed Sultan Road to the east, Martin Road and a section of the Singapore River
Singapore River
The Singapore River is a river in Singapore with great historical importance. The Singapore River flows from the Central Area, which lies in the Central Region in the southern part of Singapore before emptying into the ocean...
to the south, and Hoot Kiam Road and Grange Road
Grange Road
Grange Road may be:* Grange Road, Cambridge, England* Grange Road railway station, a former railway station in Tunbridge Wells, England* Grange Road, Adelaide, Australia* Grange Road, Singapore, Singapore- See also :* La Grange Road, Chicago, USA...
to the west. Its namesake River Valley Road cuts across River Valley near its southern end.
Etymology and history
In the 1840s, there were two River Valley roads that ran on either side of the Singapore River. The Singapore River was seen as a valleyValley
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...
between Fort Canning Hill, to the north side of the river, and Pearl's Hill, to the south side of the river. The roads on either bank of the Singapore River were named River Valley Road — the current River Valley Road and Havelock Road. Both these River Valley roads were present in John Turnbull Thomson
John Turnbull Thomson
John Turnbull Thomson was a British civil engineer and artist who played an instrumental role in the development of the early infrastructure of nineteenth century Singapore and New Zealand. -Biography:...
's 1844 map.
Adjoining the area around the Singapore River and on high ground, River Valley naturally attracted wealthy Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
ans and Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s who wanted to move away from the crowded town centre and began building their homes in the countryside up river in the 1830s.
One of the first residents to move into the River Valley district was Dr Thomas Oxley, the new colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
's surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
. In 1827, he bought land here from the East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
and established Killiney Estate as a nutmeg
Nutmeg
The nutmeg tree is any of several species of trees in genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia...
plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
. He had Killiney House built as his residence. The road nearby was named Oxley Road after the surgeon. When the plantation closed, he sold the land in several lots. River Valley Road was once part of Dr Oxley's estate before being divided up in the 1860s.
Killiney House was a grand villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
built on land behind the eventual site of the Chesed-El Synagogue
Chesed-El Synagogue
The Chesed-El Synagogue is a synagogue in Singapore. It is located at Oxley Rise in the River Valley Planning Area, within the Central Area in Singapore's central business district.The synagogue was constructed in 1905...
. This house was subsequently bought by Manasseh Meyer
Manasseh Meyer
Sir Manasseh Meyer was a British businessman and philanthropist who was a benefactor to the Jewish community in Singapore.-Biography:...
who renamed it Belle Vue and lived in it with his family. It was demolished in 1982.
River Valley was especially popular with the Straits Chinese
Peranakan
Peranakan Chinese and Baba-Nyonya are terms used for the descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants to the Indonesian archipelago of Nusantara during the Colonial era....
who also built villas in the area. Among the wealthy who had homes here was Tan Jiak Kim, the grandson of Tan Kim Seng
Tan Kim Seng
Tan Kim Seng was a Straits Chinese merchant and public benefactor in Singapore in the nineteenth century.-Biography:Born in Malacca in 1805, Tan came to Singapore where he made a fortune as a trader. Tan started his firm, Kim Seng and Company, in 1840 and amassed a large fortune in his lifetime...
, who built himself a mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
in the 1860s and named it Panglima Prang. He also paid for the construction of the road that came to be named after him — Kim Seng Road.
Another wealthy merchant who lived in the area was Lee Cheng Yan, a Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
-born Chinese merchant whose mansion built in the 1870s was named Magenta Cottage. The road Cheng Yan Place is named after him.
Most of the big mansions along River Valley have since been demolished. The one surviving villa is the traditional Chinese house built by a wealthy merchant, Tan Yeok Nee, in 1885. This house, House of Tan Yeok Nee
House of Tan Yeok Nee
The House of Tan Yeok Nee is a mansion building located at the corner of Penang Road and Clemenceau Avenue in the Museum Planning Area in Singapore. Today, the building is being used as the Asian campus for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.-History:The mansion belonged to...
, is now a national monument
National Monuments of Singapore
National Monuments of Singapore are buildings and structures in Singapore that have been designated by the Preservation of Monuments Board as being of special historic, traditional, archaeological, architectural or artistic value....
.
Kal alei, meaning "stone crusher", is the name given by the Tamils
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
to River Valley Road, from the steam crusher which was once kept at the corner of Tank Road and River Valley Road. The Chinese have two other interpretations — ong ke sua kha in Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
, meaning "foot of Fort Canning Hill", or leng thau che, meaning "dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
's head well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
" or "the fountain
Fountain
A fountain is a piece of architecture which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air either to supply drinking water or for decorative or dramatic effect....
by the side of the ice
Ice
Ice is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...
works". The latter interpretation could refer to the spring on the hill and the waterfall
Waterfall
A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...
from it. The ice works belonged to Whampoa Hoo Ah Kay (circa 1816-1881), which were demolished in 1981.
Features
The residential areas within River Valley consist mainly of private property for the middle and high income sections of the population. River Valley is also a popular eating spot for SingaporeSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
ans. A famous local eating place here is a Hainanese chicken rice
Hainanese chicken rice
Hainanese chicken rice is a dish of Chinese origin most commonly associated with Hainanese and Singaporean cuisine, although it is also commonly sold in neighbouring Thailand and Malaysia...
shop named Boon Tong Kee. There is also a well-known eatery selling Nasi Padang, appropriately named "River Valley Nasi Padang."