The grounds you now tread on used to be part of a huge nutmeg plantation in the 1850s called Mount Harriet. Colonial Treasurer William W. Willans and local businessman Whampoa Hoo Ah Kay co-owned the estate, which, with 1,600 trees, included the area where Singapore Botanic Gardens now stand.

When an outbreak of disease felled many plantations in Singapore, Mount Harriet was not spared. A nutmeg-beetle blight, “a curious disease of the nut, resembling leprosy in the human being”, eventually caused the estate to cease operations in 1857.

Though the plantation was extremely profitable for a period of time, the nutmeg blight caused Mount Harriet to become commercially unviable. Probably eager to get the plot off their hands and move on, Willans and Hoo sold the land to the British Forces in May 1860 for a modest sum of 25,000 Spanish dollars.

In 1843 the district of Tanglin consisted of barren-looking hills covered with short brushwood and lalang. This was the result of the deserted gambier plantations, and immediately on the inauguration of granting land in perpetuity in that year a large number of nutmeg trees were planted in this district. ... The plantations …[that] surrounded the country residences were very luxuriant, and when the fruit was on [the nutmeg trees] the odour was quite delightful. ... Tanglin must have been a very beautiful place at this time, a veritable spice garden.

– From One Hundred Years of Singapore

The purchase

In the 1850s, the British Empire faced political unrest in her colonies and against other countries, namely the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the Crimean War. This prompted the British government in Singapore to further fortify the island, a commercially and militarily important colony of Great Britain, and house European troops separately from native soldiers. To prepare for and house the influx of British troops, the government bought over Mount Harriet and started construction for Tanglin Barracks.

Before the purchase, garrisons in Singapore were mostly located at Fort Canning and areas around the city centre. Their proximity to the commercial district caused merchants to worry that their warehouses would be destroyed during a military crossfire. Acknowledging their concern, the British government bought the Mount Harriet plot, which was in an outlying area, to station the new troops.

Under the supervision of Colonel George Chancellor Collyer, Chief Engineer of the Straits Settlements, construction for Tanglin Barracks began in 1860. The first barracks were built at the area where Dempsey Hill and the Loewen cluster are now. There were ten service barracks for 50 men each. In addition, there were wash and cookhouses, hospital wards, a school, reading room, library and officers’ quarters.

With thatched attap roofs and square columns, the original structures at Tanglin Barracks incorporated plenty of windows and doorways to provide as much fresh air as possible. To keep the barracks breezy and help the incoming European regiment combat Singapore’s tropical heat, raised wooden floors and plank walls were used while open verandahs wrapped around each building.

In 1911, the thatched roofs were replaced with more durable red French tiles that have remained to this day.

The charming architectural features of these barracks are protected under Singapore’s conservation guidelines and can still be admired in Dempsey Hill today.

The name Tanglin probably came from the Chinese dialect words tang leng, meaning "eastern hillocks", taking its bearing from Chinatown. In the early 19th century, Chinese businessmen ventured east of Chinatown to establish plantations in the hilly Tanglin area. Afterwards, the Europeans also came to Tanglin to set up their own plantations and build residences on the hills.

Even though construction of the Barracks was completed in 1861, the buildings were not occupied until 1867. Before troops from the 80th Foot Staffordshire Volunteers arrived, the Barracks underwent renovations and a hospital was added. The 240-bed Tanglin Hospital was used as a military hospital for British forces until 1940, when increased troops in the years preceding World War II called for a larger hospital. The Military Hospital was then transferred to Alexandra Hospital.

Upper Tanglin has a Tamil name, Vampumalei, which translates to "Whampoa's Hill", probably referring to part of Mount Harriet.

When the Barracks were built, there was no church nearby and services were held privately in the barracks without an official chaplain presiding over them. Commanding Officer Major C. H. Malan took on the role of lay chaplain and supervised the building of a garrison church.

It is not known exactly where this first garrison church was built, but by 1910 the congregation had outgrown it and a larger building was erected. William Henry Stanbury, a member of the Royal Engineers and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, designed the church in the classical Basilica style of the Romanesque tradition.

Known as St. George’s Garrison Church in the early years, the building has continued as a place of worship to this day. On 25 October 1971, after the British forces had withdrawn from Singapore, the church became a civilian church and was incorporated into the Anglican Diocese of Singapore.

The redbrick church building was gazetted on 10 November 1978 as a national monument of Singapore. Today St. George’s is a growing international Anglican church.

The church was built like a long rectangular barn – a form perfected by the Greco-Romans centuries ago. While elegant in its simplicity, the building also projects an honest, robust character with its exposed red brick and mortar.

For more information about St. George's Church services, visit www.stgeorges.org.sg/services.

World War II affected Singapore and her people greatly. When the colonial government surrendered on 15 February 1942, the soldiers defending Singapore suddenly became prisoners of war (POWs).

Before many of them met their untimely demise, most famously while working on the Thailand– Burma Railway, British and Australian troops were gathered at Tanglin Barracks – the place where they lost their freedom to the war.

The March from Tanglin Barracks to Changi Gaol

In an article published in a 1944 issue of The Argus, an Australian Army driver recounts the "black day for the defenders of Singapore":

About 8pm, we were told by our OC (Officer Commanding) that Singapore had fallen and that we were now prisoners of war. ... The next day we marched to the Tanglin Barracks to hand over our arms and equipment to the Japs. ... In the afternoon we began a nightmare march to Changi camp, 15 miles north [east] of Singapore. ...About 15,000 Australians marched to Changi, and many fell out on the roadside to sleep as night came on. I reached Changi at 3am.

The "nightmare march" to Selarang Barracks, Changi took about 14 hours.

In an especially poignant passage, Colonel Colin Tuckfield from Kenmore, Queensland reminisced:

My mind wanders back to that day ... when we sat in utter bewilderment in our slitties outside Tyersall Palace, savouring the utter silence, rendered more so by the occasional rifle shot, which followed the days of bombardment. It was a day of contrast – of noise and quiet, of war and “peace”, of freedom and imprisonment, of ugliness and beauty
– yes, even beauty.

Do you remember when we passed out of the chaos which was Singapore, with its corpsechoked canals, its smoke and stench, the tangle of trolley wires and the wreckage of buildings; how marching to Changi in the evening, we passed a spot where, in lovely silence, millions of fireflies were blinking on and off like Christmas tree lights? It was, for some, the last beauty they beheld.

After more than three-and-a-half years of suffering, Singapore was returned to the British when Japanese forces in the region formally surrendered on 12 September 1945. Following the surrender, British forces retook Tanglin Barracks and assigned it as the General Headquarters of the Far East Land Forces. Once again, expatriate soldiers, officers and their families roamed the grounds of Tanglin.

With them also came locals who lived, worked and played in the area. From civilian staffers to shop owners, Singaporeans contributed to the life of then-Dempsey Hill. Gina Ho’s parents were among these residents. They ran a small shop in the area from 1958 to 1970, where Ho spent her childhood running around the verdant grounds of Tanglin Barracks, interacting with British soldiers.

With a fine tradition of parties, dances and balls dating back to its early days, the garrison and its occupants continued this merrymaking after the war. According to Ho:
The British ... celebrated Christmas and Easter in a very big way. The British fancied cooking their food with butter. We could smell butter wafting from the kitchen all day. ... My uncle was their favourite chef. Naturally, I had my fair share of tasty English food like roast turkey, roast potatoes and lamb chops.

The soldiers held regular sporting events as well, pitting different regiments and troops in Singapore against each other in swim meets, boxing tournaments, cricket matches and more. Clearly, beyond its military vocation, the Barracks served as a significant centre of social activity for various communities in Singapore.

Here, Gina Ho describes the locality then:
A very quiet place with lots of fresh air; [it] was very self-contained. The facilities ... included two churches, a kindergarten, a broadcasting station owned by the Gurkhas, swimming pool, theatre, tailor, a few football fields, dancing hall, offices, Commander’s office, tennis court, basketball court, golf club, landing field for helicopters, post office [and a] POSB bank.

Some houses were built for the British soldiers and their families, some were built for bachelors. A British family built a tree house in one of the big trees. In the evenings, I would climb to the tree house and read my storybooks. I did not have many storybooks then, so I ended up reading my second brother’s Chinese books. As a result, my command of the Chinese language was fantastic. My brother was in preuniversity; I was about nine years old.