Gurney Drive 2024
When you travel to someone else’s country, it’s really hard to restrain yourself so you don’t just eat food. Moreover, Gurney Drive is guaranteed to make your stomach throb and want to try the culinary delights here.
Considering that Gurney Drive itself is the best food center in Penang, you must try the culinary atmosphere here. The location of this culinary place is on the seashore, which adds to the sensation of culinary excitement here.
Many typical Malaysian foods are sold here, such as Oh Chien, Bak Kuk Teh, Penang Laksa, and nasi lemak. This place is open from 6 pm to midnight. Don’t worry, there is a very tempting halal menu here too.
Gurney Drive (Malay: Persiaran Gurney, Chinese: 新关仔角 / 新關仔角; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: sin kuan-á-kak, Tamil: கர்னி டிரைவ்) is a popular seafront promenade within the city of George Town in the Malaysian state of Penang. The road is also famous for the street cuisine at the seafront’s hawker centre and has been listed as one of the 25 best streets worldwide to visit by the Australian travel magazine, The Traveler.[1][2] In addition, Gurney Drive has become part of George Town’s Central Business District due to the mushrooming of commercial properties and shopping malls.[3]
Previously known as the New Coast Road, it was completed in 1936 along what was then known as the North Beach and renamed in 1952 after Sir Henry Gurney, British High Commissioner in Malaya (1950–1951), who was assassinated by the guerrillas of the Malayan Communist Party during the Malayan Emergency.[4]
Over the years, the beaches along Gurney Drive have largely been lost to coastal erosion. More recently, a land reclamation project at nearby Tanjung Tokong has reversed the erosion, leading to the accretion of silt and mud off Gurney Drive. Mangrove saplings have sprouted in the mud, which is now frequented by egrets and other birds as well as mudskippers.
As of 2023, the shoreline off Gurney Drive is being reclaimed for the purpose of creating a public recreational park named Gurney Bay.
Gurney Drive sits on reclaimed land created off Teluk Ayer Rajah, the bay that once existed between George Town and Tanjung Tokong. The intention to build a coastal road was already planned as early as 1930 as an extension of Northam Road (now Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah). The first 510 yards (470 m) of Gurney Drive was completed in 1934, and at that time, it was simply named “North Beach”.
Gurney Drive was initially named as New Coast Road. It was then renamed Gurney Drive in honour of Sir Henry Gurney, the British High Commissioner in Malaya who had been assassinated by communist guerrillas in Pahang in 1951.
However, a few years later, a debate erupted over the renaming of Gurney Drive. It was proposed that, with the independence of Malaya imminent at the time, Gurney Drive should be renamed Merdeka Drive.[6] To compensate for the renaming of the road, a bust of the late Sir Henry Gurney was to be constructed. The Municipal Commissioners who opposed the renaming of Gurney Drive then wrote directly to Gurney’s wife, who was said to have taken ‘the change very bravely and even offered to help with regard to the statue or bust’. A sculptor in London, David McFall, offered to create the bust for $4,500.
When the recommendation for the provision of $6,000 for the bust was reviewed by the Finance Committee of the Municipal Council, it was eventually decided to not only to defer the provision of the bust but also that the drive should continue to be called Gurney Drive.
In 1962, a section of Gurney Drive was planted with casuarina trees.[6] A councillor subsequently suggested that the City Council should consider renaming Gurney Drive into “Casuarina Drive” or “Casuarina Beach”. The suggestion was never implemented, and today, the section where the casuarina trees were planted remains a distinct, leafy part of the seaside promenade.
Gurney Drive was once a sandy beach where people could collect seashells i.e. siput remis or small mussels which were abundant back then. The seawater was so clean and pollution-free that it became a venue for dragon boat races from the 1960s to 1980s. Back then people would swim in the sea and fishermen would return to the beach with their catches, especially for fishes and king crabs along the shore.[
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