History
Between 1845 and 1856, the Assembly Rooms — a space for public functions and a building that housed a theatre and a school — occupied the current site of the Old Hill Street Police Station.
The Old Hill Street Police Station building is the site of Singapore's first jail. Following a meeting of soldiers in the Alexandra Barracks in 1915, the Singapore Police Force was reorganised. As a result of the reorganisation, from 1915 to 1935, the Singapore Police Force built several police stations to deal with increasing Chinese secret society activities. To provide vehicular access behind the building, the steep slopes of Fort Canning had to be cut back and shored up. In 1934, the Hill Street Police Station and Barracks was opened by Director of Public Works and Adviser for Malay States, G. Sturrock, who was also a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA). In addition to the standard facilities for a police station, there were living quarters for policemen and their families.
During the Japanese Occupation, Hill Street Police Station was used by the Kempeitai as a holding area for prisoners and some say, as torture chambers. After the war, it reverted to being a police station. The Arms and Explosives Branch of the Police Department operated there from 1949 to 1981.
In the 1960s, a new housing scheme gave police personnel the option to live in government-built accommodation. Police staff gradually moved out, with the last occupant leaving in 1979. Two years later, the station was closed and, after renovations, the building was renamed Hill Street Building in 1983. It housed the Official Consignee, the Official Trustees, Public Receiver and the Archives and Oral History Department (now the National Archives) and other government departments.
Today, it is used by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) and other associated departments and statutory boards, including the National Arts Council, the National Heritage Board and the Media Development Authority.
The Old Hill Street Police Station building was gazetted as a national monument on 18 December 1998.
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