For subscribers
Orchard Road Refresh: From nutmeg orchards to urban jungle
With ongoing plans to refresh Orchard Road, such as the Istana Park expansion announced last month, The Straits Times looks at the genesis and future of one of the world's most famous shopping strips in a two-part report
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Follow topic:
Singapore's prime shopping belt during colonial times was far from the fruit-laden Eden-esque tropical thoroughfare that its epithet would have you evoke.
The truth is that Orchard Road was a dusty rural lane that snaked past cemeteries, hills and gambier farms carved into the landscape by gambier merchants before Stamford Raffles hoisted the British flag in Singapore in 1819.
