Homes in the Naval Base

Please note! The houses in this area are private residences. Please respect the residents, keep noise level to a minimum, and do not enter the houses or compounds. Please refrain from taking photographs and videos of the houses and their residents.

Admiralty Road East, which was constructed in 1923, is flanked by many colonial-era houses. These houses were built in the 1920s and 1930s as residences for British officers of the former Sembawang Naval Base.

Opened in 1938, Sembawang Naval Base was built by the British during the 1920s and 1930s. The base contained a dockyard where warships were refuelled and repaired. Its barracks, known as HMS Terror, housed visiting sailors and is now Sembawang Camp. The dockyard of the base was converted into Sembawang Shipyard (now Sembcorp Marine Admiralty Yard) in 1968, ahead of Britain’s withdrawal of military forces from Singapore, which began in 1971. The last British warship left Singapore in 1975.

The houses in the former naval base come in various sizes and designs. Many of them are black-and-white bungalows, a style that was popular in Singapore in the early 20th century. These include the bungalows along Gibraltar Crescent, which were built in 1929 for engineers of Sir John Jackson Limited, a British firm that built the base.

The largest black-and-white houses in the area were built in the 1930s and housed the naval base’s topmost officers, such as the Captain of the Dockyard and Chief Engineer. Smaller houses in the area were intended as residences for other staff such as chargemen (supervisors). These smaller houses show the influence of the arts and crafts architectural movement, with the partially exposed brick surfaces on their facades.

Explore the Suggested Short Trail Routes:

• Historical Landmarks of Sembawang, 2 hours with public transport (7km)
• Communities of Sembawang, 3 hours with public transport (8km)
• From Dockyard to Shipyard, 2.5 hours with public transport (5km)

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