This cache brings you to a rather quiet stretch of the otherwise bustling shopping stretch that is Orchard Road. I was always curious why this patch of wooded prime real estate opposite the Concorde Hotel was left vacant. Perhaps it’s too narrow for any viable commercial building or that it’s too close to the Istana… or maybe, just maybe, there’s a secret hiding underground…
Conspiracies aside, what’s more surprising is that this patch of green wasn’t always vacant. In fact, some might say, that the previous residents were going around in circles, went postal and left the place to the dogs. Do you know why?
Clemenceau Avenue, which is now split into two (a North portion at Cairnhill, and a South portion at Fort Canning), used to intersect this part of Orchard Road. The central portion of the Avenue was expunged when the Central Expressway (CTE) was built. The intersection between the two roads was known as the Orchard Circus, with a fifth small exit leading to the Istana gates. The Circus has now been completely wiped off the map, with nary a trace that a roundabout once stood here.
At the southwestern corner of Orchard Circus stood two buildings: the old Orchard Post Office and the Headquarters of the Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or the SPCA. The Orchard Post Office building was built in 1902, but the building proved too cramped to serve the needs of the quickly developing Orchard area, so the post office was moved to the Killiney Post Office just down the road. Next door to the Post Office was the SPCA. There were kennels there as early as 1954, but the main building which became the headquarters were completed in 1965. The site was occupied until the general area was slated for redevelopment in the 1980s, so all the buildings there, along with the roundabout disappeared, leaving us with a curious green patch in between Orchard and Penang Roads.
Today, other than a carpark and clump of trees that seem to be surprisingly wilder than one would expect in central Singapore, there really isn’t anything else here. Well, now there’s a cache that I hope you’ll find somewhat amusing. It is hidden in plane sight, as you’ll see, but please be gentle! There is no need to remove the host, just remove and replace the “payload” when logging the cache. It’s no Concorde, but it’s a little spin on how fast things change here in Singapore