Caldecott Hill is a private housing estate, located along Thomson Road in the Central Region of Singapore. The estate is served by Caldecott MRT station, on both the

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all point (geometry), points in a plane (mathematics), plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the Centre (geometry), centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is cal ...

and Thomson-East Coast MRT lines.

Background

Etymology

Caldecott Hill is named after respected British colonial administrator and former

Governor of Hong Kong The governor of Hong Kong was the representative of the United Kingdom, British The Crown, Crown in British Hong Kong, Hong Kong from 1843 to 1997. In this capacity, the governor was president of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, Executiv ...

Sir Andrew Caldecott, who had served in various posts around

British Malaya The term "British Malaya" (; ) loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British Empire, British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. Unlike the ...

(Officer Administering the Government of the Straits Settlements and High Commissioner for the Malay States in 1934) for nearly three decades.

History

The site had historically been used for radio and television broadcasting; the

Broadcasting Corporation established its studio at Caldecott Hill in 1937. Its successor Radio Malaya broadcast from Caldecott Hill until after Malaya's

declaration of independence A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

in 1957, when it relocated its main studio to

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

, and the new regional station Radio Singapura began broadcasting from its former studio. After Singapore's declaration of independence, Radio Television Singapore moved its television stations to a new $3.6 million studio at Caldecott Hill in 1966. RTS's successors, including current state-owned broadcaster

Mediacorp Mediacorp Pte. Ltd. is the state media, state-owned media conglomerate of Singapore. Owned by Temasek Holdings—the investment arm of the Government of Singapore—it owns and operates television channels, radio, and digital media properties. ...

, continued to operate from Caldecott Hill until 2015, when Mediacorp relocated to a new corporate campus at

One-north one-north is a subzone of Queenstown, Singapore, Queenstown, Singapore, first developed by JTC Corporation as the country's research and development and high technology cluster. It was first conceptualised in 1991 as part of the National Tech ...

. The old campus at Andrew Road was left abandoned until October 2020, when Mediacorp officially put the land up for sale, and appointed real estate consultants to market the area to hold 67

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...

plots. In December 2020, the land was sold for $280.9 million to Kuok Khoon Hong and his company Perennial Real Estate Holdings.

References

Memories of Caldecott Hill

Caldecott Hill
Places in Singapore Central Region, Singapore {{Singapore-geo-stub