In Singapore, the idea of heritage is often tied to places like Little India, Chinatown and Joo Chiat.
But beyond these familiar spots are lesser-known districts similarly brimming with history.
Shining a light on this is a couple in Singapore who decided to curate a series of heritage tours exploring atypical places.
We went on one such tour — Don’t Call Us Poor: Hidden Lives of Lavender — which took place on a Saturday (April 11) morning.
The two-hour excursion covered the Lavender and Jalan Besar areas, and is one of Hidden Heritage Tours’ anchor tours.
“We like places that are typically overlooked,” Stanley Cheah, the company’s co-founder told AsiaOne during the tour.
His passion for uncovering hidden stories and places began when he found out that a supermarket he frequented was formerly the country’s first-ever ice-skating rink.
“It’s interesting to uncover forgotten history like that,” the 27-year-old said.
Stanley runs Hidden Heritage Tours alongside his wife, Amanda Cheong, 38.
The pair previously worked in finance — Amanda for 13 years and Stanley for two — and met through their shared hobby of exploring abandoned places in Singapore.
[[nid:624916]]
In August 2024, they left their corporate jobs to focus on the tour business full-time after the birth of their son Theodore in November 2023.
“We wanted to spend more time with him and pursue our passions a little more,” said Stanley.
Prior to starting the business, Stanley and Amanda ran Abandoned Singapore, an Instagram page exploring abandoned and unlikely places around the island.
From there, they received requests for curated tours from fans, and started conducting unofficial tours on weekends.
Don’t Call Us Poor: Hidden Lives of Lavender
On why they chose a place like Lavender for their tours, Amanda explained: “The more touristy or spotlighted places are already very well-covered.”
With that, we set off for our first stop — Crawford Bridge along North Bridge Road. Here, we learnt about the history of one of the oldest roads in Singapore. Our attentions were also brought to the colonial-era emblems on the bridge.
The second place we visited was the North Bridge Road Tua Pek Kong Temple. It’s a small shrine located in an open-air carpark next to the North Bridge Road Market and Food Centre.
According to Amanda and Stanley, the temple was funded and built by the market vendors to accumulate good karma and as a way to give back.
