Another sketch for my Significant Spaces and Places series which I will combine with old photos and personal stories about my Peranakan Chinese ancestors.
Still following Google maps along the Singapore River, this time to sketch Elgin Bridge.
The last time I travelled under Elgin Bridge was in 2013 while on a Singapore River Cruise with some overseas friends and I see the colours of the buildings on the other side of the river were much more colourful then.
Here's my on-location sketch from near the same spot in 2013.
The two earliest bridges built at this site were wooden footbridges, followed in 1862 by an iron bridge. This was named Elgin Bridge after James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin, a colonial administrator and diplomat who had served as Governor of Jamaica, Governor-General of Canada and Viceroy of India. The current concrete bridge was built in 1929.
An Italian sculptor Cavaliere Rudolfo Nolli, designed the cast iron lamps on both sides of the bridge.
Interestingly the two roads leading to Elgin Bridge are named North Bridge Road and South Bridge Road. Stamford Raffles, Founder of Singapore issued an instruction in 1819 that a bridge be built as soon as possible across the Singapore River so that it may link a town planned for the Chinese community on the southern side of the river to another intended for the Malays on the northern side!
I'm pleased to learn that Elgin Bridge (together with Anderson Bridge and Cavanagh Bridge and collectively known as The Singapore River Bridges) are gazetted a National Monument of Singapore.
To read my post of my earlier 2013 sketch and trip to the Singapore River see:
http://nowismystoryinsketches.blogspot.com/2013/11/elgin-bridge-and-beyond_12.html
#Sailorfude pen, watercolour, #MoleskineWatercolourNotebook, 8.25”x 5"(portrait.
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