The churches and schools of Queen Street

Posted by noelbynature under Buildings and Monuments, Heritage Sites and Trails
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Jerome takes a walk through Queen Street and along the way, points out the many churches, schools and former schools found there. One obvious example of a former school is the old St Joseph’s Institution building, which is now home to the Singapore Art Museum. Can anyone tell which school this building, now part of the SMU complex, was built over?

The answer is Raffles’ Girls Primary School. Along with the old SJI and St Anthony’s Boys School, there was another school that was a college for ‘A’ level candidates:

Opposite the Brother’s quarters on the east side, there was the Kum Yan Methodist Church (which is still there) and the buildings that housed the Catholic High School, part of which was also housed across the street in the compound of the “Chinese Church”, the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul. Further along the west side there was this tall narrow building which housed Stamford College, a private college which was popular with students sitting for their GCE “A” Level examinations privately, which is now used as the Oxford Hotel. Sited next to this building was the Stamford Community Centre and its compound. With some of my schoolmates, desperate for a place to kick a ball around before school, I had on occasion, climbed over the gate which was opened only in the evenings to have our game of street football on the basketball court.

Besides the schools, there were (and still are) are three Catholic churches in the area, and so that must have added to the bustle on Sundays. Read about them in Schools, churches and a candlelight procession: Memories of Queen Street.

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