When it was a British crown colony, Singapore was under the symbolic rule of the British monarchy until the 1960s.

Post-independence, the island state has played host to Queen Elizabeth II three times in 1972, 1989 and 2006.

During her first visit in 1972, Queen Elizabeth visited Toa Payoh, one of the first Housing and Development Board estates. She visited some residents in their new flats.

As documented on the Singapore Memory Project website, Mr Jerome Lim said his parents' Toa Payoh flat was one of those graced by the Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, for a brief visit in 1972.

"The Royal family was shown around the flat... and perhaps because of the view the kitchen offered, they spent more time in the kitchen than in any other part of the flat," he wrote.

Photos on Tatler Asia capture Queen Elizabeth fitting in visits to Townsville Primary School at its former address in Ang Mo Kio, the Tanjong Pagar Conservation Area, as well as the Kranji War Memorial in 1989.

She was also received by then Singapore President Wee Kim Wee and then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew for a state banquet in her honour at the Istana.

On her next visit nearly two decades later in 2006, the Queen was at Kranji again, this time accompanied by then President S R Nathan to the horse racing tracks at the Singapore Turf Club, where she gave out the prize to the winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Cup.

She also met Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Fullerton Hotel and at another state banquet at the Istana.

Her final visit to Singapore brought her full circle to the Toa Payoh HDB estate she had first visited in 1972.

Revisiting one of the flats, the queen met Mr Thomas Pung and his daughter Genevieve and was served a drink in a glass that had been preserved for posterity.

The beverage was changed from a 7Up in 1972 to iced water in 2006, but the glass from which Queen Elizabeth drank was the same, as the Pungs said it had not been used until her unexpected return 34 years later.