Did you know places and roads in Queenstown are named after towns and cities in Scotland, where the Queen spent much of her childhood?

1. Queenstown is named after Queen Elizabeth II on 27 September 1953 to mark her coronation. The husband of the Queen, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, her sister Princess Margaret, and her grandson Prince William Duke of Cambridge had visited Queenstown in 1965, 1972 and 2012 respectively. However, the Queen had never stepped foot on Queenstown.

2. Places and roads in Queenstown are named after towns and cities in Scotland, where the Queen spent much of her childhood. Strathmore was a valley connecting Forfar, where the Queen spent much of a childhood, with Dundee, a city near Strathmore. Birkhall was the residence of the Queen’s mother whereas Stirling was a market town in central Scotland.

3. Queenstown is the first satellite town in Singapore. The town pioneers a myriad of social institutions including the first technical school in 1956, the first polyclinic in 1963, the first flatted factory and first vocational institute in 1965, the first community library, the first neighbourhood sports complex and the first school for children with special needs in 1970.




4. The Singapore Improvement Trust had originally planned for five neighbourhoods in Queenstown. These neighbourhoods were Princess, Duchess, Commonwealth, Tanglin Halt and Queen’s Close. The Housing and Development Board took over in 1960 and added two more neighbourhoods in Mei Ling and Buona Vista.

5. Singapore’s first HDB flats are located in Queenstown. Blocks 45, 48 and 49 were the first housing blocks constructed by HDB shortly after its establishment in 1960.

6. The Home Ownership for the People Scheme and the Public Housing Scheme were launched in Queenstown in 1964 and 1968. The former is a scheme which allows Singaporeans to own their own homes whereas the latter allows Singaporeans to purchase a residential apartment using their Central Provident Fund (CPF). These two schemes contribute to the high homeownership rate in Singapore.

7. The first industrial estate in Singapore is located along Alexandra Road in Queenstown. Conceived by the Singapore Improvement Trust in the 1930s to arrest the declining entrepot trade, the industrial estate was once home to factories including the Tiger Beer Brewery, Archipelago Brewery Company (ABC), Thye Hong Biscuit Factory, Lea Hin, Hock Lee Bus Depot and Nanyang Siang Pau.

Contributed by MyQueenstown.

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