Ann Siang Hill

The shophouses on Ann Siang Hill, the tallest geographic point in Chinatown, are today home to fashion boutiques, trendy bars, and posh restaurants, but before ownership of the hill passed into the hands (and namesake) of Chia Ann Siang, the hill had two prior owners who also named the hill after themselves.

Charles Scott was the first to occupy the hill. He ran a clove and nutmeg plantation on it after tapping an underground spring to form a well and thereafter called it Scotts Hill. After a series of crop failings, however, ownership of the hill passed to John Gemmill, Singapore’s first auctioneer and banker, who renamed it Gemmill’s Hill. A Malay college and high school relocated to the top of the hill and a Cantonese burial ground at the base of it (which was later exhumed and used for land reclamation). In 1894 the land was sold to Chia Ann Siang, a Melacca-born timber businessman. The once-cultivated hill gave way to shophouses and recreation centers constructed to serve the Chinese community.

Most of the buildings you see today were built between 1900 and 1940 and were once home to remittance houses and clan associations visited by immigrant and often illiterate Chinese. They found support above the hustle and bustle of Chinatown below, got help finding jobs, and could send back money to their relatives in China.

By the 1980s, Ann Siang Hill and Chinatown in general were in decline in both attractiveness and usefulness to rapidly modernizing Singapore. To reinvent and revitalize the historic yet now crumbling and vermon-infested area, the Urban Redevelopment Authority in 1989 gave conservation status to Chinatown which Ann Siang Hill is a part of.

Targeting tourists and Singaporeans alike, today you will find hidden parks and fascinating alleyways full of beautifully conserved shophouses. Ann Siang Hill remains true to its heritage while at the same time is hip and happening.

Photography by PaperTastebuds.com