Church of Our Lady of Lourdes

On the edge of “Little India” in Ophir Road, a church was built with funds collected by members of the Indian community who came from Pondicherry. Father Joachim Alexander Marie Meneuvrier, a French priest, saw the need for a church that catered to the Indian population with services in Tamil. In 1885, the government provided a piece of land for the establishment of a church. Bishop Gasnier laid the cornerstone of the building on 1 August 1886, and the building was completed and officially dedicated in May 1888. The site on which the church was built was originally a swampland and located near a canal. Its location near Serangoon Road was significant because the area had been an Indian enclave since the 19th century, and the location was considered convenient for local Catholics. Alexandre Izambert was responsible for providing the foundation plan and the cast-iron columns and metal frameworks, but it was a local firm, Swan & Lermit, which submitted the plans for the proposed church and presbytery and undertook the supervision of the construction of the building which was completed in May 1888. The presbytery and a school were completed at the same time. Both were located in an additional two-storey building in the church compound. Father Meneuvrier managed to obtain an extra piece of land from Governor Sir Frederick Weld for the building, which housed his living quarters on the top floor and the school on the ground level. Unfortunately, during World War II, the city area came under heavy bombardment and the church was not spared. Bombs fell within the church grounds, one of which demolished the top floor of the presbytery, while the church itself did not sustain any structural damage other than shattered windows and glass stains. The presbytery remained a single-storey structure after the war and was later demolished for reasons relating to structural safety. Our Lady of Lourdes School was one of the earliest schools in Singapore and first functioned as Anglo-Tamil School in the last quarter of the 19th century. This Tamil school was opened by Father Meneuvrier on the ground floor of the presbytery at the same time as the church’s official opening in 1888. In 1927, a single-storey wooden school building for Indian girls was erected by Father Louis Burghoffer, and in 1936, it was run by the Sisters of the Holy Infant Jesus. In 1962, it was replaced with a three-storey concrete structure by Father Albert Fortier. In 1974, church authorities gave up the church’s Indian Roman Catholic status, choosing instead to serve Catholics of all ethnicities and languages. The Indian influence on this church, however, was apparent, as religious services were still conducted in Tamil and English. In 2000, a centre was set up on the church’s premises to help the less fortunate upgrade or pick up a new skill. Maids of different nationalities were trained by self-help groups at the centre to do jobs ranging from cooking to secretarial duties. Church of Our Lady of Lourdes was gazetted as a national monument on 14 January 2005. In 2009, the church benefited from an assistance scheme to prevent the deterioration of national monuments when it was awarded S$449,000 to undergo urgent repairs to its belfry and roof.

50 Ophir Road Singapore 188690