Fort Canning - Spice Garden

•Bencoolen is a place in Sumatra where Sir Stamford Raffles was appointed as Governor-General in 1817 by East India Company.

•East India Company received a royal charter from Queen Elizabeth in 1600.

•Wealthy merchants and aristocrats owned shares in the company.

•The company is incorporated to do trade with East Indies / Indies which is comprised of Southeast Asia. However, ended up having trading mainly with India.

•The company maintained private armies and assisted princely states in their warfare. Eventually the company ended up taking control of small states and rule them.

•After 1857 Indian Sepoy Mutiny, the British crown took control of governing India and other states/provinces around Southeast Asia.

•Sir Stamford Raffles was sent on an expedition by British India Company, to find a suitable place for the British ships to take a break and fill fresh water on their way from far East to India and other British ports.

•He found Singapore island in 1819 and by entering into a treaty with the sultan found a new settlement for British trading and eventually which ended up under the control of the crown.

•Sir Stamford Raffles greatest interests were, Botany and Zoology.

•At that time, spices were as valuable as gold among the English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese. European nations fought for control over the sources and routes in the East.

•Raffles had noble ambitions for Singapore's agricultural development, and had sent from Bencoolen spices like clove saplings and nutmeg seeds to develop plantations.

•He returned to Singapore in 1822, built house on top of Fort Canning and established his first experimental garden, The Spice Garden at Fort Canning.

•The first spices at the garden were – Clove, Cinnamon and Nutmeg.

•After Sir Stamford Raffles left Singapore in 1824, never returned.

•He passed away at Highwood House in Mill Hill, north London in 1826 at the age of 44.

•Now, the garden at Fort Canning, maintained in the memory of Sir Stamford Raffles is under National Parks Board and has more different varieties of spice specimens from around Southeast Asia than the original.

 

 

 

 

Note: In the above list, I have chosen only some from the actual available on the ground. You may find other plants or trees or shrubs that are more interesting to you. Spice Garden at Fort Canning goes through regular upgrades and a possibility of change in the list of plants mentioned above. At the time of my posting, the list is updated.

 

 

Jurong Hill

 From Jurong Bird Park, a road leads up the hill. Climbing the stairs to reach the top was more exciting than driving up to the car park. It's very quite up there. On this nice cloudy day, the cool breeze was kissing our skins and giving us goose bumps.


We laughed at ourselves for under estimating Singapore weather. Morning it was so sunny that we chose to wear light cotton shirts. Now, sun had gone for holiday and left us to face the chilly wind. Luckily we were holding on to umbrellas for sun and now prepared if it rains.

We looked around the hill and the well maintained garden.  Huge PongPong and Timbasu trees covered the entire garden. I doubt, if it rains the earth will get wet. We saw stone plaques under the trees. We thought of looking around first before proceeding to investigate them.

We walked to one and only building on the hill. It has a spiral walk way all the way to the top and  we started climbing to see what's there on the top of the building!

At the top of the building, we were rewarded with an amazing view of Jurong Island and many more factories in Tuas and Jurong. Evidence of Singapore's industrial revolution in 1960s. Huge cranes in horizon marked ongoing construction and progress of this tiny red dot on the world map. Looking around, for a moment, I couldn't stop admiring the work of dedicated and loyal leaders and pioneers of this nation who brought an almost good for nothing marshland to such wonderful heights - economically and socially. Their thought went not just in one direction - development in terms of dollar sign. They had plans to safeguard this tiny nation's heritage, environment, multi culture unity and much more. Hat's off to you, Pioneers!!

Coming back to present position, we saw many cars lined in a compound. Huge building with

trucks and many containers. Long bridge. Later on maps we found
that it is the Jurong Pier Flyover which leads to Jurong Island. Though the weather was cool and we were tempted to sit in the huge spacious, all by ourselves, hall, we rushed down so not to be caught in the rain, if it happens and for our disappointment, it
didn't rain the whole day!!! That IS Singapore.


We came down and started exploring the garden, trees and the stone plaques. My friend quickly did a Google search and told me that there are in total 27 trees on the hill and the place is called Garden of Fame. Fame? How come no guide told us about this place or no brochures? Well, we wanted to explore and try to find about why and how famous is this place.

Google search gave us information that the first tree is planted by Princess Alexandra of United Kingdoms in 1969. There were trees planted by various dignitaries like Queen Elizabeth II, President of India V V Giri, Vice Premier of China DengXiao Ping and so on.

We counted all the 27 trees and found that the last tree was planted in 1984 by Dr. A. Winsemius.

After digging out quite few books, articles and stories from old folks, NLB and internet, the story

of Jurong Hill felt very inspiring and somewhat made us sad that many in
the new generation doesn't even know the existence of the place if not its significance. The Garden of Fame came into existence during the first Singapore's Industrial revolution. That means, when government first thought of creating Singapore as a trustworthy, stable and affordable manufacturing partner for many American and European companies. During the same time, the idea and plan to develop Jurong as industrial estate and Jurong Island as safe zone for petrochemical industries formed.

The visiting dignitaries were given a tour of the new coming up facilities and introduced to the strong team of visionaries. As a token of appreciation,
the new budding country, requested these dignitaries to plant a tree. Even today these trees are taken care of with lots of special care and thought. This shows how much Singapore values these friendly ties and its view on maintaining international relationships.

We found only plaque with no office bearing or official credentials. This was Dr. A. Winsemius. Our search lead us to Dutch Economist and Singapore's economic advisor from 1961 to 1984. During our research on Dr. Albert Winsemius, we came across a quote which said, he was also called as 'Father of Jurong'. He arrived in Singapore in 1960 to conduct a survey on behalf of United Nations to assess the potential of young Singapore for industrialization. He saw great potential in this strategically located tiny island. His advise to ride on the new wave of technological industry helped in the formation of Jurong industrial town.

Here is the list of trees and the map to show their location on the hill. Take a walk around when you are in Jurong or visiting Jurong Bird Park. Take a birds eye view of the activity that's happening in the industrial area and if you can, appreciate the valuable efforts of our pioneers, the fruits of which we are enjoying today.