What Was Novena Before Novena? | Hospitals, a Jewish Cemetery, Kampong Chia Heng and the Church That Named the District

SINGAPORE / ESTATE HISTORY / NOVENA

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By The Memory desk · Historical reference · Sources checked 7 October 2026

Novena is one of the few Singapore districts named after a devotion rather than a place. The name comes from the Saturday novena devotions that began in January 1949 at the Redemptorist chapel on Thomson Road, which made the Church of St Alphonsus, completed in 1950, famous as “Novena Church”. Before that the land was known by its roads and villages: Thomson Road, laid out by 1853; Moulmein Road, once called Cross Garden Road; Teochew burial hills; and Kampong Chia Heng, a village named in 1929. Tan Tock Seng Hospital had already settled beside it in 1909.

So Novena history runs in reverse. The church, the hospital and the village came first, and the district name was laid over them afterwards, carried across the map in the 1980s by the MRT station built on the old kampong’s land. This guide sets out what came before the name, separates what the heritage record documents from what is merely repeated, and links to the neighbouring histories of Balestier, Toa Payoh and Newton.

Novena before the name at a glance

Location	Around Thomson Road, Moulmein Road and the western end of Balestier Road, between Newton and Toa Payoh
Name	From the novena devotions at the Church of St Alphonsus; novena comes from the Latin novem, nine
Before the name	Fruit trees, paddy fields and Teochew burial grounds; later Kampong Chia Heng, terrace houses and hospital land
Key institutions	Tan Tock Seng Hospital (on Moulmein Road from 1909); Church of St Alphonsus (Redemptorists from 1935, church completed 1950)
Village	Kampong Chia Heng, named 1929, about 1,000 residents in the 1950s, land acquired 1981
Name fixed on the map	Novena MRT station, built on the kampong site; construction on the line nearby began in October 1983
Today	A hospital, church, office and residential district on the North–South Line

Why is it called Novena?

A novena is a Catholic devotion of prayer repeated over nine days or nine sessions, from the Latin novem, nine. The Redemptorists, a missionary order founded in 1732 by the Italian priest St Alphonsus Liguori, began weekly novena devotions to Our Lady of Perpetual Help at their chapel on Thomson Road in January 1949. The first session drew about 80 people, according to the church’s own history.

The devotions grew so popular that the Church of St Alphonsus, built in 1950, came to be known simply as Novena Church. Both the National Heritage Board and the church record that the surrounding area, and later the MRT station, took the name from it. By the early 1990s the church says that 15,000 or more people attended its ten Saturday sessions. In our reading, that weekly crowd is what made the name stick: people were not describing a place so much as where they went every Saturday.

Before the name: Thomson Road, fruit trees and Teochew hills

In the mid-nineteenth century this ground sat on the edge of the large district that early maps called Toa Payoh, which the Heritage Board notes once took in present-day Novena. The main route through it was Thomson Road, completed in 1853 by the government surveyor John Turnbull Thomson and named after him. South of Balestier Road lay paddy fields, and fruit trees lined the hilly ground north of Moulmein Road, which was then called Cross Garden Road. The wider story of that swamp-and-plantation district is in what Toa Payoh was before Toa Payoh.

The hills were also used for burial. The Toa Payoh heritage trail lists Guang En Shan, a public Teochew burial ground at Kampong Chia Heng between Balestier and Thomson roads, and the Balestier trail records a Teochew cemetery on the southern side of Balestier Hill. Burial grounds on the edge of town were common in colonial Singapore, and most were cleared as the city spread; our history of Bishan and its cemetery hills follows the largest such clearance.

Many accounts of Novena also mention a Jewish cemetery on Thomson Road whose graves were moved to make way for the MRT. We have not been able to confirm its dates against the heritage sources used for this guide, which place the station on Kampong Chia Heng’s land, so we leave them open rather than repeat them. Meanwhile the streets around Moulmein Road acquired the names of places in Burma, among them Mandalay, Irrawaddy, Pegu, Martaban and Shan roads. The Heritage Board notes pre-war terrace houses at Pegu and Martaban roads and Eurasian families living along Irrawaddy, Shan and Martaban roads from the 1930s.

1909: Tan Tock Seng Hospital moves to Moulmein Road

The district’s medical character is older than its name. Tan Tock Seng Hospital, founded in the 1840s on Pearl’s Hill as the Chinese Pauper Hospital, stood at the junction of Balestier and Serangoon roads from 1860 to 1909, where the area became known as Rumah Miskin, the house of the poor. Part of the old Balestier plantation land nearby was used to bury its patients. In 1909 the hospital moved a short distance west to Moulmein Road, where it has stayed. That earlier chapter is told in what Balestier was before Balestier.

The hospital shaped the streets around it. The Heritage Board records that the terrace house at 13 Martaban Road once housed orderlies, or male nurses, who worked at Tan Tock Seng, and a former resident remembers walking to the hospital along Martaban Road. Detailed dates for the later nurses’ quarters, tuberculosis wards and teaching buildings around Moulmein and Mandalay roads are widely repeated, but we have not been able to check them against primary heritage sources for this guide, so we do not list them here.

Kampong Chia Heng, the “kampong of forgotten souls”

Behind the site of today’s Novena Church stood Kampong Chia Heng. It was officially named in 1929 after Leow Chia Heng (1870–1931), a Teochew cloth merchant, banker and rubber planter who served as president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. In the 1930s the village had a badminton court and a football club, the Chia Heng Youngsters.

Conditions worsened after the Second World War. By the 1950s, the Heritage Board records, residents had nicknamed their home the “Kampong of Forgotten Souls” because it lacked public services and suffered from clogged drains and mosquitoes. About 1,000 people lived there, Chinese, Malays and Muslim Indians among them. The government acquired the land in 1981, and the area was later redeveloped into Novena MRT station.

1935 to 1950: the Redemptorists build Novena Church

The church that named the district began modestly. A group of Redemptorist priests and brothers, Fr Aloysius Brennan among them, arrived in Singapore on 30 July 1935 and set up their first chapel in a house at 339 Thomson Road, now the site of Thomson Medical Centre. In 1941 they moved to 418 Thomson Road, and during the Second World War the priests were interned. In 1948 they bought a plot at 300 Thomson Road from the businessman Wee Kah Kiat and held their first Mass there on 31 July that year.

The Church of St Alphonsus was completed in 1950 to a design by Swan and Maclaren, one of Singapore’s leading early architectural firms. URA describes it as eclectic-Modern with Classical touches, including fluted Doric columns and a triple-arched front with a round stained-glass window. Wide covered porticoes were added on both sides in the late 1950s to hold the overflow on Saturdays. An annual procession began on 21 June 1953, the building was gazetted for conservation on 8 June 2011, and a redevelopment that ran from October 2014 to 2017 added a new worship hall beside it.

1981 to 1987: the MRT fixes Novena on the map

Rapid transit turned a local nickname into an official place name. After the kampong land was acquired in 1981, ground was broken for the MRT at Shan Road, off Balestier Road, on 22 October 1983, when tunnelling began on the stretch between Toa Payoh and Novena. The station opened in 1987 on the North–South Line and took the church’s popular name. From then on, offices, shops and housing nearby described themselves as being in Novena, whatever their street address. The interchange one stop south is covered in what Newton was before Newton.

Seeing old Novena today

As of October 2026, the conserved 1950 church still stands at 300 Thomson Road beside its newer worship hall, and the Redemptorists opened a heritage centre there in 2021. The pre-war terrace houses of Pegu and Martaban roads survive near the hospital. Nothing remains of Kampong Chia Heng or the Teochew burial hills. The National Heritage Board’s Balestier Heritage Trail covers several of these sites and is the best guide on foot; check the church’s own notices for visiting arrangements, which change around services.

A Novena timeline

• 1853: J.T. Thomson completes Thomson Road.
• 1860–1909: Tan Tock Seng Hospital stands at the Balestier–Serangoon junction.
• 1909: The hospital moves to Moulmein Road.
• 1929: Kampong Chia Heng is officially named after Leow Chia Heng.
• 30 July 1935: The Redemptorists arrive and open a chapel at 339 Thomson Road.
• 1948: They buy land at 300 Thomson Road from Wee Kah Kiat.
• January 1949: Saturday novena devotions begin, with about 80 people.
• 1950: The Church of St Alphonsus is completed.
• 1950s: Kampong Chia Heng, with about 1,000 residents, becomes known as the “Kampong of Forgotten Souls”.
• 1981: The government acquires the kampong land.
• 22 October 1983: MRT ground-breaking at Shan Road.
• 1987: Novena MRT station opens.
• 8 June 2011: The church is gazetted for conservation.
• 2014–2017: The church is redeveloped with a new worship hall.

Questions people ask

Why is Novena called Novena?

After the novena devotions at the Church of St Alphonsus on Thomson Road, which began in January 1949. The church became known as Novena Church, and the area and MRT station took the name.

What does novena mean?

It is a Catholic devotion of prayer over nine days or sessions. The word comes from the Latin novem, meaning nine.

What was Novena MRT station built on?

The National Heritage Board records that it was built on the land of Kampong Chia Heng, a village of about 1,000 people that the government acquired in 1981. Other accounts also mention a Jewish cemetery on Thomson Road nearby.

When did Tan Tock Seng Hospital move to Novena?

In 1909, when it left the Balestier–Serangoon junction for Moulmein Road. It had been founded in the 1840s on Pearl’s Hill.

When was Novena Church built?

The Church of St Alphonsus was completed in 1950 to a design by Swan and Maclaren, on land the Redemptorists bought in 1948. It was conserved in 2011.

Sources and further reading

• National Heritage Board, Roots: Church of St Alphonsus (Novena Church)
• Urban Redevelopment Authority: 300 Thomson Road conservation record (2011)
• Novena Church: History of Novena Church and the Devotion
• National Heritage Board: Balestier Heritage Trail booklet (2020 edition)
• National Heritage Board: Toa Payoh Heritage Trail booklet
• Wikipedia: Novena Church (for the 1953 procession and 2014–2017 works)

This is a historical reference; visiting arrangements at churches and hospitals change, so check before you go. Read next: What Balestier was before Balestier · What Newton was before Newton · Back to The Memory