- Bencoolen Street
Bencoolen Street (zh-cp|c=明古连街|p=Mínggǔlián Jiē}, Malay : "Lebuh Bengkulu"}) is a
street in Central,Singapore that starts at the junction ofRochor Road andJalan Besar and ends at the junction ofFort Canning Road ,Stamford Road andOrchard Road . The street houses severallandmark s includingSim Lim Square ,Bencoolen Mosque andAlbert Complex . A number ofhotel s andserviced apartment s exist, namelySummer View Hotel ,Bayview Hotel Singapore ,Hotel 81 Bencoolen ,Strand Hotel ,Hotel Rendezvous andSomerset Bencoolen .Etymology and history
Bencoolen Street was named in remembrance of Sir Stamford Raffles' position as
Lieutenant Governor inBencoolen (nowBengkulu ),Sumatra , as well as that it was located in Kampong Bencoolen.When Raffles came to the island in 1819, a number of Bencoolen Malays came as well and settled in the area where the street was. When the British gave up Bencoolen in 1824, after singing the
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 , the number of Bencoolen Malays grew. The majority of the oldest Singaporean Malays andEurasian s descended from the Bencoolen Malays.Kampong Bencoolen covers the area of Bencoolen Street itself,
Waterloo Street ,Prinsep Street , Middle Road and Albert Street. BencoolenMuslim s built amosque between 1825 and 1825 known asMasjid Benggali (now theBencoolen Mosque ). The first building was made fromattap and anArab merchant came in 1845, known asSyed Omar bin Aljunied built the second building. Bencoolen Mosque was demolished in the early 2000s and made way for a new mosque. The mosque is currently owned byMajlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS). Alongside with the new mosque, aservice apartment building run by theAscott Group exists. Thegraveyard s of the Bencoolen Muslims were located in where the current Istana is, facing Orchard Road.The Chinese in pre-war days sometimes referred the street as "chai tng au", meaning "behind the
vegetarian hall", alluding to the meeting place of the Chinese vegetarian guild located in that area.References
*"Victor R Savage, Brenda S A Yeoh (2004)", Toponymics A Study of Singapore Street Names, Eastern University Press, ISBN 981-210-364-3"
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