Once it has a glorious past, Matilda house is now situated lonely within the new Punggol LRT loop
*Punggol’s new landmark*
In the early 1970s, the Government under the Land Acquisition Act as acquired the Maltida House aka Punggol Kampong House from Mr Cashin. Mr Howard Cashin, 82, eminent lawyer and a epitome on the Singapore rugby scene for decades, spent many happy holidays in and around it. It is called Matilda House, named for his paternal grandmother and built by his father, Mr Alexander Cashin, as a present for his wife.
The Punggol seaside bungalow, built in 1921/22 as a weekend retreat for the Cashin family, will be restored and conserved as a landmark and put to community use in Punggol New Town. The house is within a short walking distance from Punggol 21 and, for those old enough to remember, off that narrow winding road that led to those great Punggol Point seafood eateries.
It was in October 2002, Mr Cashin and The New Paper team visited the Matilda house again. Mr Cashin was quite shocked by seeing its present state, and he confessed to being ‘a little shaken’ at seeing it in its present state.
Mr Cashin, the last owner of the house still has a vivid memory about this soon-to-be new landmark in Punggol
*The glorious past*
The dilapidated framework and red corrugated roof don’t do any justice to its glorious past. It had a red-tiled roof and pristine white-washed walls then. It was a sprawling, single-storey, six-bedroomed bungalow with servants quarters attached, stables on the side and set in orchards which had mangosteen, durian and rambutan trees.
Manicured lawns, tropical blooms, clipped hedges lay to the front with neat tennis courts to the sides. And a long staircase ran down the garden – which was on several levels – to the sandy beach, which was a mere 200m away. Even this was not all of it. The Cashin family owned about 350 hectares of land in the area on which there were also rubber and coconut plantations.
‘The last time I came here was about 10 years ago,’ said Mr Cashin, looking mildly upset. His first memories of Matilda House date to the time he was about 4 years old. The Cashin family, originally from Ireland and one of the oldest to have settled in Singapore, owned several other houses here. Mr Cashin was born in their mansion in Haig Road, now no longer in existence. There was also a house on Grange Road and another in Sarimbun. In addition, the family owned other properties, including about 400 shop-houses all over the island.
‘It was my grandfather, Joseph William Cashin, who made the money,’ he explained. Once a lawyer’s clerk, his grandfather invested in opium farms – legal in the 1880s – and made a fortune there before investing in real estate. Cashin Street, off North Bridge Road, was named after him. ‘My father followed suit, but without benefit of the opium,’ quipped Mr Cashin. ‘He built Matilda House, and my memories of Singapore as a small boy revolve vastly around it. We could swim in the sea, but in pagars (a swimming enclosure in the sea) to keep out sharks or the occasional crocodile which would appear.’
Mr Cashin later became one of this country’s best-known legal eagles, and was a sparkling personality and somewhat controversial figure on the sports scene. The long-time president of the Singapore Rugby Union played on the Singapore Cricket Club rugby team and also captained its cricket team for several years. But he had left Singapore at 7 to go to school in England. And stayed there for 11 years, going later to Oxford University where he shone at cricket and rugby and qualified as a lawyer.
‘I had some happy days at Matilda House when I returned just before the war,’ he said. ‘Then went off again.’ He spent much of the war in the Indian Army, stationed at the north-east frontier. He said matter-of-factly: ‘Those places they mention in Afghanistan these days… they are all familiar to me.’ Immediately after, he returned to England, was called to the Bar in London and came back here to practise as a lawyer.
‘I was also newly-married then,’ he said. ‘And we set up home in Matilda House.’ Those halcyon days, when he was a ‘workaholic lawyer’, avid sportsman, young husband and father were evidently the happiest. His two children from that first marriage – Mary, now 48 and Charles, now 46 – spent their first years in the house. Later his brother, Mr Joseph Cashin, also a prominent lawyer here, took over the house with their mother and sister.
They were asked to leave about 10 years ago and the house has lain empty, falling slowly into ruin.
Mr Cashin himself had left Singapore by the late 1980s, settling in Italy with his second wife. But when that marriage was over, he returned here, to Murphy and Dunbar, the old law firm he’d been a partner in. It was dissolved in 1996 and he started his own firm. He is only semi-retired now, still taking the odd case. And with his siblings and children all living abroad, he’s the only Cashin left in Singapore now.
Seeing Matilda House after all these years was an emotional experience. There’s regret at the state of disrepair it has fallen into, but that’s tinged with a measure of satisfaction. He said: ‘I’m happy that the house will still be standing. But I hope it will be used well.’
*Plans for Matilda*
MATILDA House has been identified by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) as one of the buildings in the Punggol area that is worthy of conservation. No hard and fast plans are available yet, but the URA has realised its potential for community use or as a clubhouse once the surrounding area is developed.
Together with the Housing Board, the URA developed plans for Punggol (including Punggol 21) to be a waterfront town.
A URA statement said: ‘We try to identify icons and structures that have historical, architectural and identity significance, and try to retain them for future new towns. ‘So when they are developed, they will have certain elements from the past as markers and heritage corners.’
It has been working with other agencies to try and determine a suitable use for Matilda House, so it can be restored to its former glory and still be adapted to new uses.
Source of information by Gloria Chandy, Oct 21, 2002 Monday.
