Commonwealth & Holland Village Heritage Tour by My Community

To continue from my previous post, I'm pleased to make the acquaintance of Kwek Li Yong from My Community when he invited me to the media preview of the Commonwealth and Holland Village guided tour that will be launched in April 2016. The tour covers the following heritage sites:

1. Chip Bee Gardens
2. Holland Village
3. Former Eng Wah Theatres
4. Former Kampong Holland Mosque
5. Holland Drive Neighbourhood Centre
6. Shuang Long Shan Wu Shu Memorial Hall
7. Queenstown Lutheran Church
8. Commonwealth Crescent Neighbourhood Centre
9. The First Flatted Factory
10. MOE Heritage Centre
11. Block 85 & 86 Commonwealth Close
12. The VIP Block
13. Former Baharuddin Vocational Institute
14. Ridout Tea Garden
15. 23 Ridout Road, 2 Pierce Drive, India House

During the media preview, Li Yong gave me their "My Queenstown Heritage Trail" booklet published in Feb 2015 and I was told, intriguingly, that it will be reprinted soon. I also came to know two other tours conducted by My Community - Alexandra & Dawson and Tanglin Halt & Margaret Drive. How does their new tour fit into the big picture? I look at their map of "My Queenstown Heritage Trail" and things start to clear up. Here is the map that will presumably be updated with the booklet.

Source: My Community

There are five smaller trails on the map under the umbrella Queenstown Heritage Trail and these roughly coincide with the different neighbourhoods in Queenstown. Historically, a total of 5 neighbourhoods were planned for Queenstown by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT). Later HDB took over SIT and added Buona Vista and Mei Ling. The name of the trail for the neighborhood in bracket.

1. Princess Estate (Princess Trail)
2. Duchess Estate (Duchess Trail)
3. Tanglin Halt (Wessex & Tanglin Halt Trail)
4. Commonwealth (Commonwealth Trail)
5. Queens' Close & Crescent (Mei Ling and Alexandra Trail)
6. Buona Vista
7. Mei Ling (Mei Ling and Alexandra Trail)

That leave Buona Vista / Holland Village end of Queenstown uncovered and my guess is they are updating the map to include the new location cluster. The guided tours combine the smaller trails and the new tour of Commonwealth & Holland Village will be no different in combining a new smaller trail around Holland Village and the existing Commonwealth Trail.

In my next post, I will blog about the new guided tour in greater detail.