Holland Village
Good Ol’ Holland Village! Singapore’s oldest bohemian enclave, Holland Village, is a crescent-shaped area of shophouses and low-rise malls bounded by Holland Road and Holland Avenue. Two small roads, Lorong Liput and Lorong Mambong run through Holland Village. While it has a reputation of being an expatriate neighbourhood, Holland Village has become a popular haunt among locals as well.
Holland Village derived its name from Holland Road, which is said to be named after Hugh Holland, an early resident in Singapore. Holland Road was known colloquially in the Hokkien dialect as hue hng au, meaning “behind the flower garden” because it is close to the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
Holland Village was developed in the 1930s as a military village with local businesses mainly catered to the needs of British soldiers and their families based in Pasir Panjang and Alexandra. Its proximity to Tanglin, a residential area associated with the European community, also contributed to the early development of Holland Village as an expatriate enclave.
In the 1960s, Holland Village was a cluster of two-storey shophouses and wooden shacks, with businesses, such as pubs, curio shops and tailors, catering to a predominantly western clientele. The creation of Chip Bee Gardens opposite Holland Village to provide additional military housing for the British reinforced the expatriate character of the neighbourhood.
Over time the local residential population expanded and businesses catering to locals grew.
Holland Village has seen renewed expatriate presence with the arrival of foreign professionals who rent houses and apartments in the Holland Road area. By the late 1980s, Holland Village had become known as a haven for food lovers, because of the variety of dining options available. Apart from traditional coffee shops and local family-run eateries serving Asian cuisine, the area also had trendy fast food outlets and upscale international restaurants that have earned it the nickname of “mini Orchard Road” – a suburban extension of Singapore’s prime shopping belt. This attracted a mixed crowd of local teenagers, families, yuppies, and expatriates, which contributed to the Village’s cosmopolitan atmosphere.
Source: National Library Infopedia
Aerial photograph of Holland Village by the British Airforce between 1940 and 1970, from a collection of the National Archives of Singapore.
Crown Copyright.
Below: Mr. Wellie Ang Kum Siong is a 98-year-old tailor at Holland Village who makes batik shirts at his shop Wellie Batik Fashion at Holland Road Shopping Centre, which he runs with his youngest son Erick. We have been frequenting his shop over the past 20 odd years and were privileged to meet him recently (in May 2024). Below are some photos of Mr. Ang who agreed to be photographed and graciously posed for a picture with us.
Below: Another 40-year veteran of Holland Village is this eighty four year old shop-owner who has some delightfully quaint and eclectic wares at very reasonable prices. Such long standing folks are central to the soul of this quaint and lively part of Singapore and their legacy will no doubt continue to benefit Holland Village.
Thambi Magazine Store, the iconic news-stand along Lorong Liput in Holland Village, will close by the end of Sunday (05 May 2024). The shop has had over 80 years of history spanning three family generations.
Periathambi Senthilmurugan, who prefers to be known as Sam, has dedicated his entire life to magazines. The 47-year-old runs store and is himself an avid and broad reader. His shop is impossible to miss not only for its location, but also because it is probably the only roadside news-stand that stocks, according to Sam, nearly a thousand titles from all over the world.
Given our own interactions with this icon of Holland Village - and Singapore itself - we had to pay a visit to bid goodbye to Sam and the store itself. The photos below capture how Thambi (as it is fondly known to patrons) has grown with the times and generations of younger people, to be a dynamic and friendly neighborhood spot for locals and visitors alike.
Below: Sam (below left) chats with a customer while below right is a sampling of the age demographics of his store, which ranges from older professionals to younger readers.
Below: These two young customers too had come to bid goodbye to Sam and his store, and they kindly agreed to my wife's request for us to capture their own fun way of getting some photo memories! They reflect the cross-section of readers who frequented this iconic stall.
Clockwise from above Left:
Street scenes
Below: Tony the sketch artist was engrossed with capturing a sketch of the news-stand before it closed. He's been doing sketches of buildings and places across Singapore - and pre-Covid, across Asia and Europe - and took a few minutes to chat with us.
Below: Chatting with an old Uncle who was enjoying many beers and is a regular at the Holland Village hawker centre where we stopped for a fresh fruit juice. He was very proud of his many 'gangster-style' rings and necklaces, and was happy to show them off! Another of the many varied and colorful personalities you meet in this unique corner of Singapore.
