as a governor during the British Java period and may have observed the verandahs, footways and continuous eaves of the Batavia. It has been claimed that Raffles ordered the construction of walkways of around five feet wide in front of shops in Batavia. Singapore In 1819, Raffles founded modern Singapore, and it was in Singapore that the five-foot way became firmly established as an architectural feature of the region, when Stamford Raffles included this and other details in his Town Plan of 1822. Raffles issued a set of instructions on how the new colony may be organised in his plan for Singapore in 1822. He stipulated that the buildings in the newly established colony should be uniform, and should be built of brick and tiles to reduce fire risks. He added that: This became the five-foot way, and this feature of shophouses in Singapore was observable by the 1840s from the drawings of Singapore John Turnbull Thomson. The land leaseholder had to provide public walkways of certain width in front of their shops and houses. As they constructed the second floor above the public walkways, it formed roofed continuous walkways along the street. Although it was planned as a public walkway, the five-foot way would also become a place for hawkers to trade, and it was used as retail, storage, and even living spaces. Attempts in Singapore to clear the walkways of hawkers who were obstructing the walkway in the 1880s led to the so-called "Verandah Riots". Other Straits Settlements Ordinances and by-laws requiring such verandah walkways were then enacted from the mid-19th and early 20th century in the Straits Settlements and Malayan towns, for example, the 1884 building by-laws introduced by Frank Swettenham in the rebuilding of Kuala Lumpur provided for the inclusion of 5-foot passageways beside the road. However, the term "five-foot way" was not specifically mentioned in such ordinances and by-laws, rather words as arcade, verandah or verandah-way or five-foot-path were used. The term may have been coined by builders in response to the minimum width of the walkway. The walkway would become an integral feature of many settlements in neighbouring British colonies in the Malaya peninsula, and by the later half of the 19th century became a feature of the distinctive "Strait Settlement Style" buildings. It is still commonly found in the towns and cities of Malaysia. Although it was originally a feature colonial-era buildings, many