PRAYA RECLAMATION.
(Contd.)
842
Before the Reclamation was actually completed, the new land was laid out in plots and mapped for roads. The four short streets running from Queen's Road to Des Voeux Road were to be carried on to the sea front and the new Praya was to be known as Connaught Road, named, said the Telegraph, after the gentleman who so kindly attended a free dinner when the Reclamation was commenced.
The journal was fearful that the statue of Queen Victoria would take up too much space, leaving only about 15 feet on each side for a roadway.
According to plans then in possession of the Telegraph, each of the four streets running northwards — Murray Road, City Hall Street, Wardley Street, and Ice House Street — would lead to the wharf, the last named being the most important. The timbers of the old Pedder's wharf were to be taken up and used in the construction of the new Murray Wharf.
Long before the Reclamation was completed, various lots of building land were allotted. The Cricket field was enlarged by an acre, and quite an engineering and horticultural feat had to be performed in transplanting the trees at the north-east corner. These were by no means young trees, and it required great care to cut down all the foliage, swathe the trunks in matting, dig out the roots, haul the trees clear of the ground by a staging, drag them across the new site by a "crab" winch, and then carefully lower them into the holes prepared for them.
It is interesting to note that at the time the reclamation work was being carried out, strong efforts were made to obtain naval and military sanction to run the Praya across the front of the present naval yard. If this had been agreed to, Connaught Road would have extended almost in a straight line to the Praya East reclamation. The War Office strenuously opposed such a plan, and so it was that when the reclamation was completed in 1902, it was confined to the area from West Point to Murray Road, alongside the naval yard.
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