Raffles 1887
DIARY OF A LONG BAR
Remembering Cad's Alley
If walls could speak, what tales would the Long Bar in Singapore tell? Our regular delve into the Raffles archives draws from an illustrious 137-year history of elegance and enchanted glamour.
RAFFLES Hotel Singapore opened in 1887 and its elegant contours have continued to evolve ever since. In 1913 a cast iron verandah was erected by the hotel’s main entrance. Furnished with potted ferns and bistro-style tables and chairs, the verandah quickly found favour with young male expats. Here, they would sit and enjoy a gin or whisky with water and discuss the issues of the day. Their female companions were not, perhaps, quite so enthusiastic: they had to make do with tea or fruit juice since it wasn’t done for a lady to be seen drinking alcohol in public.
The young men had another reason for enjoying the hotel verandah: it offered the perfect vantage point from which to gaze at the ladies going in and out of the hotel. Their somewhat ungentlemanly behaviour soon earned the verandah the soubriquet 'Cad’s Alley'.
The verandah was removed in 1919 to make way for the magnificent Raffles ballroom. The alley is commemorated in a designated section of corridor that leads to the Long Bar. The cads may have long gone, but the spirit of Cad’s Alley lives on.
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