Lexus Penang (shop selling Lexus cars), No.26, Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, George Town (GPS: 5.42325121214,100.333467454), Open 9am-5.30pm; Phone: 019-3786666
For much of its history, and until a proper road existed, the area was known as North Beach. When the road was laid, it was given the name Northam Road, after Northam in Devon, England - I suppose after the birthplace of one of the early Governors of the Straits Settlements. It was given the present name Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah in conjunction with the visit of Sultan Ahmad Shah, who visited Penang as the 7th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia in 1982.
Northam Road, George Town (22 Dec 2009)
Northam Road was the choice address of the Europeans during the 19th century. That was why the Hokkiens in Penang called it Ang Mor Lor, especially the section west of Transfer Road. However, by the early part of the 20th century, Europeans were moving out in search of "greener pastures", literally speaking, as they vacate the urban streets of Northam Road and Light Street, heading for the more leafy Ayer Rajah neighbourhood, to places such as Western Road and Ayer Rajah Road, now Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman. The vacated properties along Light Street and Northam Road were snapped up with rich local Chinese, who proceeded to put forth ostentatious mansions to flaunt their new-found prosperity, many of which bear faux-European names. These were the most sought-after real-estate in town, and most were beach front properties (and the beach was pristine back then).
Today Northam Road is punctuated by these elegant mansions of the yesterday millionaires of Penang. However, their days of grandeur have long past, and many of these grand dames are forced to house commercial enterprises. Some of these properties have given way to skyscrapers - this is one of the places in George Town where it is still permitted to build high, being outside the heritage zones.
Northam Road was known as Ang3mor3 Lor33 (European Road) to the west of Transfer Road junction, and Ang3mor3 Ku33 Thiong2 (Old European Cemetery) to the east of the junction.
Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah roadsign (10 February 2020)
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Buy, rent or sell properties in Penang
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About this website
Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.
While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.