Duxton Hill
Encyclopedia
Duxton Hill is a small hill
Hill
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills...

, as well as the name of a road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...

, located in Tanjong Pagar
Tanjong Pagar
Tanjong Pagar is a historic district located within the Central Business District in Singapore, straddling the Outram Planning Area and the Downtown Core under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's urban planning zones....

 within the Outram Planning Area
Outram, Singapore
Outram is a district in Singapore, within the Central Area, relatively near the prominent city centre and financial districts, but is nearer the border of the Central Area, and outside the Downtown Core. Outram is served by extensive public transport, including SBS Transit and a Mass Rapid Transit ...

 of 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...

.

The road leads from Tanjong Pagar Road to the peak of the hill, and is intersected by Duxton Road (达士敦路; Dáshìdūnlù). Duxton Road is a one-way
One-way traffic
One-way traffic is traffic that moves in a single direction. A one-way street is a street either facilitating only one-way traffic, or designed to direct vehicles to move in one direction.-General signs:...

 road linking Neil Road
Neil Road
Neil Road is a one-way road in Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar in the planning areas of Outram and Bukit Merah in Singapore. The road starts at the junction of South Bridge Road, Maxwell Road and Tanjong Pagar Road and ends at Jalan Bukit Merah which then merges into the latter...

 to Craig Road
Craig Road
Craig Road may refer to:*Craig Road *Craig Road *Chemin Craig, historical road in Quebec....

.

Etymology and history

The Duxton Hill area sits on the former 13-hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

s 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...

 with 1,800 trees of Dr J. William Montgomerie (1797–1856), who first arrived in Singapore in 1819 and became an Assistant 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 the service of the British colonial government
Founding of modern Singapore
The founding of modern Singapore in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles paved the way for Singapore to become a modern port and established its status as a gateway between the Western and Eastern markets....

. Duxton was the name of one of his two dwelling
Dwelling
Dwelling, as well as being a term for a house, or for living somewhere, or for lingering somewhere, is a philosophical concept which was developed by Martin Heidegger. Dwelling is about making yourself at home where the home itself is a building that is a house...

 houses in the area, namely the Craig Hill and Duxton House. Duxton House was built by Hugh Syme and was home to Montgomerie and his family.

After Montgomerie's death, the property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...

 was auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

ned to Ker, Rawson and Company in 1856 and fragmented into building lot
Lot (real estate)
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner. A lot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property in other countries...

s. Fourteen acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s also went to Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 Syed Abdullah bin Omar Aljunied, who divided them into four lots which were lease
Lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee to pay the lessor for use of an asset. A rental agreement is a lease in which the asset is tangible property...

d to wealthy Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

 developers. Duxton Road, Duxton Hill and Craig Road were presumably constructed after the 1856 sale and named after the houses that once existed on the hill. At the time, the area was still called Duxton Hill. Later the Reverend J.T. Dickenson built a children's home
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...

 here, now the Kreta Ayer Community Centre, and the hill was called Dickenson Hill (now the name of a distinct street
Dickenson Hill Road
Dickenson Hill Road is a one-way road located in Chinatown within the Outram Planning Area in Singapore. The road links Banda Street to Neil Road.-Etymology and history:...

) or Bukit Padre.

Duxton Road was also popularly known by the Cantonese
Cantonese people
The Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei sub-ethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition...

 as Jinrickshaw Place (and sometimes Kampong Ah Lai) because of the many rickshaw pullers who parked their vehicles there at the close of day due to the road's proximity to the Jinricksha Station
Jinricksha Station
The Jinrikisha Station is a historic building in Singapore, and is located in Tanjong Pagar in the Chinatown district within the Central Area, Singapore's central business district.-History:...

. Opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

 and gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...

 den
Den
Den may refer to:*Den , a part of a house similar to the living room: a den is about the size of a living room, but smaller than a family room*Den , a Ukrainian newspaper*Den , a Pharaoh of Egypt...

s, as well as cheap brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...

s, used to flourish on Duxton Road, and one writer describes it as a slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

 area and a notoriously vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...

-ridden environment. These places were patronised by the rickshaw coolie
Coolie
Historically, a coolie was a manual labourer or slave from Asia, particularly China, India, and the Phillipines during the 19th century and early 20th century...

s who lived in Duxton Road and Duxton Hill. Many of the rickshaw pullers came from Hui Ann county, in China
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...

, and they bore surname
Surname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...

s such as Teo, Ho and Chng. Because of the strong clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...

 ties, the rickshaw pullers created their own area of land and fought whenever it was threatened. Such fights made Duxton Hill and Duxton Road a dreaded area. To make matters worse, the slums were home to criminal elements. Whenever the residents in Duxton Road had disputes, the Hui Ann Association was asked to be the mediator
Mediation
Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution , a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties. A third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate their own settlement...

.

Despite the notoriety of the street, many wealthy 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....

 families built and occupied lofty and exquisitely designed residences and shophouse
Shophouse
A shophouse is a vernacular architectural building type that is commonly seen in areas such as urban Southeast Asia. This hybrid building form characterises the historical centres of most towns and cities in the region.- Design and features :...

s on Duxton Hill.

Duxton Road is known to the Hokkien
Hoklo people
The Hoklo people are Han Chinese people whose traditional Ancestral homes are in southern Fujian of South China...

s as gu chia chui kia, meaning "at the side of Kreta Ayer", referring to Craig Road. The road was also known colloquially as kampong kia nai 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 "within a small village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

". This term was probably used to refer to the slum dwellings of the rickshaw pullers.

Modern times

Today, Duxton Hill and Duxton Road have been conserved
Architectural conservation
Architectural conservation describes the process through which the material, historical, and design integrity of mankind's built heritage are prolonged through carefully planned interventions. The individual engaged in this pursuit is known as an architectural conservator...

 by the Urban Redevelopment Authority
Urban Redevelopment Authority
The Urban Redevelopment Authority is the national urban planning authority of Singapore, and a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development of the Singapore Government.-Mission:The authority was established on 1 April 1974, and is of especially critical importance to the city-state,...

 and now lie within the Tanjong Pagar Conservation Area
Tanjong Pagar
Tanjong Pagar is a historic district located within the Central Business District in Singapore, straddling the Outram Planning Area and the Downtown Core under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's urban planning zones....

. Many restored
Building restoration
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...

 two and three-storey shophouses and terrace houses still exist on Duxton Road and Duxton Hill.

Buildings in the vicinity of Duxton Hill include the Craig Place, Chinatown Plaza and Apartments and the Singapore Institute of Architects
Singapore Institute of Architects
The Singapore Institute of Architects is a professional organization established in 1961 with the objective to promote the architectural profession and the built environment in Singapore....

. A section of Duxton Hill has been converted into a pedestrian mall
Pedestrian mall
Pedestrian malls in the United States are also known as pedestrian streets and are the most common form of pedestrian zone in large cities in the United States. It is a street lined with storefronts and closed off to most automobile traffic...

. The Berjaya Duxton Hotel, also known as Duxton Hotel on Duxton Road, opened in the early 1990s, is made up of a row of converted shophouses.

Inside many of the conserved shophouses are redlight district bars.

In Duxton Park, now known as Duxton Plain Park, which extends from New Bridge Road
New Bridge Road
New Bridge Road is a one-way road located within the Central Area in Singapore.New Bridge Road starts at the Coleman Bridge to the south of the Singapore River and extends into Chinatown within the Outram Planning Area, before joining with Eu Tong Sen Street and Kampong Bahru Road within the Bukit...

 to the former Yan Kit Swimming Pool, there is a keramat of Sharifah Rogayah. A keramat is a Malay
Malay people
Malays are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations...

 sacred
Sacred
Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred...

 place, usually a grave
Grave (burial)
A grave is a location where a dead body is buried. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries....

 site of a holy person.
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