The Club stands at the heart of the city’s civic, business and heritage precinct.  Since its beginnings it has borne witness to many of Singapore’s triumphs and defeats, upheavals, independence and national events. Nearby historic buildings include Raffles Hotel, St Andrew’s Cathedral, the National Gallery Singapore (formerly City Hall which saw  Japanese surrender to the British in 1945), the Old Supreme Court (now also part of the National Gallery Singapore), Old Parliament House (now the Arts House), the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, and Empress Place Building (formerly government offices and now the Asian Civilisations Museum).

Cricket was played on the Padang as early as 1837, only 18 years after Sir Stamford Raffles founded the settlement of Singapore in 1819, but it was not until 1852 that the first meetings were called to discuss the formal establishment of a cricket club. There have been no fewer than three clubhouse buildings on the Padang, the first erected sometime in the 1860s, the second in 1877. The third pavilion, which forms the core of the present Clubhouse building, was built in 1884. It was extended in 1907 and the northern and southern wings that we see today were added in 1922.