What Was Orchard Road Before Orchard Road? | Nutmeg Plantations, Cemeteries, Bungalows and the Road Before the Shopping Belt

SINGAPORE / ESTATE HISTORY / ORCHARD ROAD

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By The Memory desk · Historical reference · Sources checked 7 October 2026

Before it was a shopping street, Orchard Road was a country road through nutmeg and fruit plantations, Chinese, Jewish and Sumatran burial grounds and, later, the bungalows of wealthy residents. An unnamed track between Government Hill and Mount Sophia appears on maps from the late 1820s; John Turnbull Thomson’s map of 1844 is the first to name it Orchard Road, with nutmeg orchards on both sides. The orchards collapsed by the early 1860s, the cemeteries were cleared in stages up to the 1980s, and only in the twentieth century did shops begin to replace houses.

This guide covers that earlier Orchard Road history: the planters, the burial grounds, the railway and the residential suburb. The retail story, from the first department stores to the malls, belongs to our history of Orchard Road shopping and to our account of how Orchard Road became a shopping street, so it is only touched on here.

Orchard Road before the shops at a glance

Location	From Dhoby Ghaut and the foot of Fort Canning north-west to Tanglin
First on maps	Unnamed in the late 1820s; named Orchard Road on J.T. Thomson’s 1844 map
Named after	The orchards and plantations along it, chiefly nutmeg, pepper and fruit
Older local names	Tang Leng Pa Sat Koi (Hokkien, “Tanglin market street”); Vairakimadam and Mettu Than (Tamil)
Main estates	Oxley’s Killiney estate, Cuppage’s Emerald Hill, Carnie’s Cairnhill, Scott’s Claymore, Prinsep’s estate (later the Istana)
Burial grounds	Sumatran Malay cemetery (Istana grounds), Jewish cemetery (1841–1903), Teochew Tai Shan Ting (from 1845), Bukit Wakaf Muslim cemetery
Before the malls	A residential suburb of bungalows, terraces, clubs and a railway, roughly 1860s to 1950s

Why is it called Orchard Road?

Because it ran through orchards. Sources differ slightly on its start: the Heritage Board finds an unnamed road on maps from the late 1820s, while other accounts say it was cut in the 1830s, and G.D. Coleman’s 1836 map still leaves it unnamed. By 1844, when Thomson surveyed the Claymore district, it carried the name Orchard Road, with nutmeg plantations on either side. Pepper, gambier and fruit were grown along it too.

Residents had their own names for it. The National Heritage Board records the Hokkien Tang Leng Pa Sat Koi, “Tanglin market street”, after a market between Cuppage and Koek roads; the Tamil Vairakimadam, “ascetic’s place”, near Dhoby Ghaut; and Mettu Than, “high ground”, for the Tanglin hills at its far end. Those names describe a road of separate places, not one continuous orchard.

1819 to 1860s: the nutmeg estates

Nutmeg arrived with the settlement. Stamford Raffles sent nutmeg and clove seedlings from Bencoolen in June 1819, and in the 1820s Nathaniel Wallich planned a botanical garden between Government Hill and Bukit Selegie with more than 600 nutmeg and 300 clove trees; it closed in 1829. After the Agricultural and Horticultural Society was founded in 1836, Europeans began laying out commercial nutmeg estates on the hills along the new road.

The Heritage Board names the main planters. The Irish surgeon Thomas Oxley took about 70 hectares between Orchard Road and River Valley Road in 1837 and built Killiney House in 1842. William Cuppage, a postal clerk, planted nutmeg at Emerald Hill the same year. Charles Carnie laid out Cairnhill in 1840. William Scott’s Claymore estate had more than 5,000 nutmeg trees, with cocoa, cotton, betelnut, durian and rambutan; Scotts Road keeps his name. Thomas Hewetson planted at Mount Elizabeth, the lawyer William Napier at Tanglin, and Charles Robert Prinsep on a large estate later chosen for Government House.

The boom was short. The Heritage Board dates a mysterious disease to 1857, which wiped out the orchards within about five years; Henry Ridley later traced it to a beetle in 1897. The National Archives also blames disease in the 1850s, while the government’s SG101 site puts the collapse in the 1840s and blames a fall in world prices, so falling prices may have weakened the estates before the disease finished them. Either way, Carnie, Oxley and Prinsep sold up and left, and Cuppage replaced his nutmegs with fruit trees. The neighbouring estates are covered in what Newton was before Newton and what Tanglin was before Tanglin.

Cemeteries along Orchard Road

Land outside the early town was also used for burial, and Orchard Road had several cemeteries. The oldest, on what are now the Istana grounds, served Bencoolen Malays who had come from West Sumatra in the 1820s; it survived until 1973, and Kramat Road and Kramat Lane recall its holy graves. A Jewish cemetery was opened in 1841 between Orchard Road and Penang Road and used until 1903. Its graves were exhumed in 1983 for Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, and Jewish burials now take place at Choa Chu Kang.

The largest was Chinese. In 1845 the Teochew Ngee Ann Kongsi opened Tai Shan Ting on the hills between Grange Road and Paterson Road, chosen for its feng shui; a Kampong Teochew grew up on its Grange Road side and lasted until the 1950s. The graves were exhumed in the 1950s for the Ngee Ann Building, a ten-storey block that opened in 1957 and was demolished in 1985 to make way for Ngee Ann City. A Muslim cemetery, Bukit Wakaf, was set up in the late 1800s on land given by the Aljunied family, used until the late 1920s and exhumed in 1983. In our reading, the cleared burial grounds were among the few large sites near the road, which helps explain where some of its biggest buildings stand today.

1860s to 1930s: bungalows, Peranakan terraces and a railway

As the orchards failed, the hills filled with houses. Oxley’s estate had become a neighbourhood of about 40 houses by 1862, its roads named after places in the British Isles, such as Somerset, Devonshire, Dublin and Killiney. Government House, now the Istana, was built on 43 hectares of Prinsep’s old estate, bought in 1867 and completed in 1869 by Indian convict labour to a design by J.F.A. McNair. The Orchard Road Presbyterian Church followed in 1878 and the Chesed-El Synagogue in 1905.

Emerald Hill was developed from 1900 by Seah Eng Kiat and Seah Boon Kang. By the 1930s it had at least 112 houses, 45 of them occupied by Peranakan families, and its Cuppage Road terraces had been built by the banker Boey Lian Chin in 1905–07. Farther out, European firms’ executives lived in bungalows on plots of 5 to 10 acres stretching towards the Botanic Gardens. From 1903 the Singapore–Kranji Railway ran from a terminus at Tank Road and crossed Orchard Road on a bridge between Emerald Hill and Cuppage Road; the line closed after Tanjong Pagar station opened in 1932.

1905 to 1950s: the first shops arrive

Shops came to serve the suburb. Cold Storage opened on the site of today’s Centrepoint on 24 March 1905, and Amber Mansions, built in 1921 at the corner of Orchard and Penang roads, had one of Singapore’s first shopping arcades beneath its flats; it was demolished in 1984 for Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. The Orchard Road Municipal Market stood at Koek Road, and the Pavilion Theatre near Emerald Hill gave the street the Teochew nickname “Tanglin cinema street”.

How this residential road became Singapore’s shopping belt, from C.K. Tang’s department store to the malls of the 1970s and after, is a separate story told in our history of Orchard Road’s retail turning points. The supermarket’s own story is in our history of Cold Storage.

What survives of pre-retail Orchard Road

As of October 2026, several pieces of the older road can still be seen. The Istana and Sri Temasek, gazetted as National Monuments in 1992, stand on Prinsep’s former estate. Emerald Hill, a conservation area since 1989, keeps its Peranakan terraces, and the Cuppage Road terraces of 1905–07 still stand beside it. Road names do the rest of the remembering: Scotts and Claymore for William Scott’s estate, Killiney for Oxley’s house, Cuppage, Cairnhill and Kramat. Nothing visible remains of the nutmeg orchards or the cemeteries.

An Orchard Road timeline

• June 1819: Raffles sends nutmeg and clove seedlings from Bencoolen.
• Late 1820s: An unnamed road between Government Hill and Mount Sophia appears on maps.
• 1837–1842: Oxley, Carnie and Cuppage lay out nutmeg estates.
• 1841: A Jewish cemetery opens between Orchard and Penang roads.
• 1844: J.T. Thomson’s map names Orchard Road.
• 1845: The Ngee Ann Kongsi opens Tai Shan Ting cemetery.
• 1857: Disease begins to destroy the nutmeg orchards.
• 1869: Government House (the Istana) is completed.
• 1903: The railway opens from Tank Road; the Jewish cemetery stops taking burials.
• 1905: Cold Storage opens on Orchard Road.
• 1932: The railway through Orchard closes.
• 1950s: Tai Shan Ting is exhumed; the Ngee Ann Building opens in 1957.
• 1973: The Sumatran Malay cemetery on the Istana grounds ends.
• 1983: The Jewish and Bukit Wakaf cemeteries are exhumed.

Questions people ask

Why is Orchard Road called Orchard Road?

Because it ran through nutmeg, pepper and fruit orchards beyond the early town. The name first appears on J.T. Thomson’s map of 1844.

What was Orchard Road before it was a shopping street?

Nutmeg estates from the late 1830s, then a residential suburb of bungalows, terraces, clubs and churches from the 1860s, with several cemeteries and, from 1903 to 1932, a railway.

Was there a cemetery on Orchard Road?

Several. The Teochew Tai Shan Ting cemetery stood on the site of today’s Ngee Ann City, and a Jewish cemetery at the site of Dhoby Ghaut MRT station; both were exhumed, in the 1950s and 1983 respectively.

What happened to the nutmeg plantations?

A disease that broke out in 1857 destroyed them within about five years, after prices had already fallen. Owners sold their land for houses or replanted with fruit.

Who owned the land on Orchard Road?

Early planters included Thomas Oxley, William Cuppage, Charles Carnie, William Scott and Charles Prinsep, whose estate later became the Istana grounds.

Sources and further reading

• National Heritage Board: Orchard Heritage Trail booklet
• SG101: Our Neighbourhood, Orchard Road
• National Archives of Singapore: I Remember Orchard
• Wikipedia: Orchard Road (for the 1830s cutting and the 1836 map)

This is a historical reference; buildings and access on Orchard Road change often, so check before you visit a particular site. Read next: Orchard Road’s shopping history · What Tanglin was before Tanglin · Back to The Memory