garden and plantation at the corner of what is now Scotts Road and Orchard Road. Towards the later part of the 1840s, graveyards began to appear along the road. By 1846, the Chinese had a large graveyard around what is now the Meritus Mandarin Hotel and Ngee Ann City, while the Sumatrans from Bencoolen had their burial ground where the current Hotel Grand Central stands. Later a Jewish cemetery was established; it was located where Dhoby Ghaut MRT station is now and was demolished in 1984. In the 1860s, Orchard Road had a great number of private houses and bungalows on hills looking down through the valley where the road passed through. Early in the 1890s, King Chulalongkorn, the then King of Siam, acquired "Hurricane House" in the vicinity of Orchard Road through Tan Kim Ching, the Thai Consul in Singapore. Two further pieces of adjoining property fronting onto Orchard Road were purchased in 1897. These subsequently became the site of the Royal Thai Embassy at 370 Orchard Road. Hurricane House was sold off around 1909 shortly before the King's death. In the early 20th century, it was noted that Orchard Road "present[ed] the appearance of a well-shaded avenue to English mansion[s]," comparable in its "quiet but effective beauty to Devonshire lanes." In the 1960s, a group of Indonesian forces bombed the Orchard road HSBC building in Singapore, just a few months before Singapore got its independence from Malaysia. A number of people were killed and the police managed to execute the two military officers responsible for this. Smoking ban Orchard Road was initially designated to be completely smoke-free with the exception of designated smoking areas by 1 July 2018. However, the implementation was pushed back to 31 December 2018, as businesses will need more time to identify appropriate locations and set up designated areas for smoking, according to the National Environment of Agency (NEA). Food establishments that currently have smoking corners within the no-smoking zones will also be given the same extension to remove them. Currently, around 40 designated smoking areas have been set up, including five public ones at Orchard Towers, Far East Plaza, The Heeren, Cuppage Terrace, and behind Somerset MRT station. Since its announcement, NEA has said that the majority of stakeholders have been supportive of this initiative. As of 1 January 2019, Orchard Road was officially declared as a strictly smoke-free zone except within the