187 years of the Botanic Gardens

Posted by noelbynature under Buildings and Monuments, Heritage Sites and Trails, National History
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Check out this image of the entrance to the Singapore Botanic Gardens in 1909 - exactly 100 years ago. Could the four white posts be the same ones still standing today?  This year the Singapore Botanic Gardens celebrates its 150th anniversary - but Laokokok argues that it should be 187 years instead. Read his post to discover the Botanic Gardens that Raffles started, even before it moved to its current premises and learn about the deeper history of our Singapore Botanic Gardens.

How does Laokokok figure that the Botanic Gardens is 187 years old? He says:

… when you mention Botanic Gardens to me, I will immediately think of a few things related to it : ‘the hawker center and small carpark opposite the main entrance, the bandstand, the pond’. Of course there are many changes now like the hawker center and small carpark may not be there anymore, and many facelift inside.

Whenever I read about the history of our Botanic Gardens, it was always mentioned that Sir Stamford Raffles established the first Botanic Gardens in Singapore in 1822 along the slopes of Fort Canning Hill. If this is the case, why are why celebrating 150 years now in 2009 and not 187 years?

The reason, of course, is that the garden’s current anniversary celebrates 150 years at its present location in Cluny Road. But as Laokokok shows in Our Botanic Garden – Why 150 Years And Not 187 Years?, the history of our Botanic Gardens goes back further in time, right to the early years after Raffles founded Singapore. There’s no better time to appreciate our gardens. Don’t you think it’s time you made a visit part of your plans this weekend?

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