Pearl's Hill

Pearl's Hill (formerly referred to as Mount Stamford Hill), is a small hill in Singapore. Located in the vicinity of Chinatown, it is one of the few surviving hills in the city area. Pearl's Hill is well known for once being the site of the multiple notable institutional buildings such as the , Seaman's hospital and the Pearl's Hill Prison.

Pearl's Hill was named after Lieutenant James Pearl.

The Pearl's Hill Service reservoir was first mooted in 1897 to provide additional storage capacity and increase water pressure. The project is described in some detail in a 1902 newspaper report which highlighted the rapid growth in water demand from 4.1 million gallons per day (average) in May 1900 to 5.4 mgpd in 1902. Built of granite and concrete at a cost of $300,000, it was 70 feet higher than the Wilkie Road reservoir which it replaced. The work was undertaken by Municipal Water Engineer Robert Peirce (engineer) and his assistant L M Bell.

Upon completion there were concerns reported in the newspaper about the construction quality, stability and leakages from the reservoir. The structure of the reservoir on top of the hill rather than sunken into the hill (like Fort Canning reservoir) appears to be the root cause of the public concern.

The reservoir is further described in the blog footnote: https://lostnfiledsg.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/pearls-hill/

When filtered water was first imported from Gunong Pulau in Johor, beginning in 1929, it was stored in Pearl's Hill Reservoir.

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Wikipedia