Bukit Timah Heritage Trail Booklet
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BUKIT TIMAH HERITAGE TRAIL A COMPANION GUIDE DISCOVER OUR SHARED HERITAGE OTHER HERITAGE TRAILS IN THIS SERIES ANG MO KIO LITTLE INDIA BALESTIER QUEENSTOWN BEDOK SINGAPORE RIVER WALK JALAN BESAR TAMPINES JUBILEE WALK TIONG BAHRU JURONG TOA PAYOH KAMPONG GLAM WORLD WAR II YISHUN-SEMBAWANG A road leading up to Bukit Timah Hill, 1890s National Museum of Singapore, Courtesy of National Heritage Board 1 CONTENTS Introduction p.2 The Chinese High School (now Hwa Chong Institution) Early History p.3 Former Raffles College Settlement and early land-use (now National University of Singapore Bukit Timah Campus) Bukit Timah Road and early colonial explorations Ngee Ann Polytechnic The railway in Bukit Timah Nanyang Girls’ High School National Junior College Natural Heritage p.10 Methodist Girls’ School History of the Bukit Timah St Margaret’s Secondary School Nature Reserve Raffles Girls’ Primary School Flora and fauna of the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve Industry p.57 Wallace in Bukit Timah Dairy Farm Nature Park Singapore Botanic Gardens Factories Hindhede Nature Park Transport Quarries Community p.25 Kampongs in Bukit Timah Leisure p.63 Fuyong Estate Swiss Club Former Bukit Timah Fire Station Former Racecourse at Bukit Timah Bukit Timah in World War II p.32 Former Beauty World Former Command House Coronation Plaza Adam Park and Sime Road Serene Centre and The British surrender and the Cluny Court Former Ford Factory Adam Food Centre Cheong Chin Nam Road, Burial Grounds and p.39 Chun Tin Road, Yuk Tong Avenue Sacred Spaces and Tham Soong Avenue St Joseph’s Church Bibliography p.75 Masjid Al-Huda Hoon San Temple Credits p.77 Fong Yun Thai Association Columbarium Suggested Short Trail Routes p.78 Bukit Brown Heritage Sites in the Suggested p.80 Educational Institutions p.46 Short Trail Routes Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary School Heritage Trail Map p.81 2 INTRODUCTION Bukit Timah, 2016 Courtesy of National Heritage Board ost Singaporeans today would Railway. There are also many schools in this associate Bukit Timah with its area such as the former Raffles College (now Meponymous hill or the Bukit Timah the National University of Singapore) and Nature Reserve. While the area’s natural National Junior College which possess long and heritage no doubt defines Bukit Timah in the illustrious histories, and have played important public consciousness, there is nevertheless roles in the development of Singapore. much more to this area than the lush greenery that meets the eye. Through the Bukit Timah Heritage Trail, you can learn more about the area’s history, Older generations of Singaporeans may beginning from the early 1800s when early remember the idyllic villages of Kampong settlers established plantations, to the nascent Tempe, Kampong Chantek, Kampong development of former industries in the Racecourse and Bukit Timah Village. Some, on 1950s and finally to the emergence of well- the other hand, may recall the valiant battles fought in Bukit Timah just days before the fall loved places such as Adam Food Centre and of Singapore on 15 February 1942. Coronation Plaza in later decades. Yet, there are others who associate Bukit This trail booklet shares not only the above- Timah with the vibrancy of the Beauty World mentioned history of this area, but also the entertainment and shopping area, or trips personal memories of those who have lived, across the Causeway via the Singapore-Johor worked and played here. 3 EARLY HISTORY n Malay, Bukit Timah means “Tin Hill”, even to set up gambier and pepper plantations. By though tin was never discovered in the area. 1827, some three-quarters of the route from IIt is possible that the hill was actually called town to Bukit Timah had been cleared of Bukit Temak by locals in reference to the primary rainforest by these settlers. Temak trees that grew in the area, with the name being altered when it was subsequently Operating before Singapore’s early road transliterated into English. network was laid out, it is likely that these cultivators transported their commodities on While it is unclear which tree species the Malay pukats (“canoes” in Malay) along the rivers name Temak refers to, the Shorea curtisii is a and coasts. Many of these pioneers toiled on likely candidate. Abundant in the Bukit Timah small-scale plantations, and were able to eke Nature Reserve, these lowland rainforest trees out only a subsistence living. are also known as Seraya. Other renditions of this area’s place-name include “Bukit Tima” or Most of these planters worked the land “Bukit Teemar”, both of which are commonly without legal title, a practice which reflected found in early British maps from the 1800s. the inability of the British government to exercise its full authority over areas outside SETTLEMENT AND EARLY LAND-USE of the town. Writing in his diary in 1839, Sir Historical scholarship has yet to uncover any James Brooke, a British naval officer who settlements in Bukit Timah before the arrival of later became Rajah of Sarawak, described the the British in 1819, although it is possible that plantations and villages around Bukit Timah in coastal and riverine-dwelling locals may have this way: visited the area’s forests in search of agarwood for incense, timber, herbs and food. “The most interesting class of Chinese are the squatters in the jungle around the high During the early years of colonial Singapore, hill of Bukit Timah. Their habitations may the municipal government was located be distinguished like clear specks amidst the primarily in the town area around the woods, and from each a wreath of smoke Singapore River. The island’s outlying districts arises, the inmates being constantly engaged and interior, including Bukit Timah, were in the boiling of gambier. We may estimate largely covered with forests and swamps, at nearly 2,000 of these people who, straying and were unexplored by Europeans. As the from the fold of civilisation, become wild and Singapore Chronicle newspaper described the lawless on its very confines. The nature of the area in 1825: country renders [British] control difficult, if “Bukit Tima [sic], although not above seven or not impossible, so that they may be said to live eight miles from the town of Singapore, has never beyond the reach of all [colonial] law ....” been visited by an European – seldom by a native, and such is the character of the intervening The plantation owners and workers often lived country, that it would be almost as easy to make a in or near bangsals, a Malay term referring to voyage to Calcutta as to travel to it.” shed-like structures which were often used more broadly to indicate a plantation, as well While the island’s interior was largely as its processing areas and accommodations. unfamiliar to Europeans in the early 1800s, The bangsals were the predecessors of Chinese planters had already ventured inland kampongs (“villages” in Malay). 4 With a significant population of plantation “One morning 600 Chinese passed our house workers inland and around the northern in straggling single file, armed, in the most coast by the 1840s, Christian missionaries impromptu manner, with guns, matchlocks, established churches and mission stations to pikes, swords, huge three-pronged fishing spears, proselytise and convert the Chinese in these knives, hatchets and long sharpened stakes of areas. A number of these institutions are still hard wood. They were going to buy rice, they said, around today, including St Joseph’s Church but they were stopped on the road by a party of and Glory Presbyterian Church. about a dozen Malay police, five of them shot, and the rest turned back.” From the 1830s, gambier planting became highly profitable due to an increased demand In the face of these socio-economic upheavals, for the crop from the tanning and dyeing many gambier planters relocated to Johor in industries in Europe and elsewhere. However, search of fresh land to cultivate. Eventually, this gambier boom also brought a number the gambier industry in Singapore became less of social and economic conflicts to the fore, profitable and by the end of the 19th century, resulting in widespread communal violence in gambier and pepper plantations had mostly the mid-1850s. been replaced by vegetable and fruit farms, and later by the cash crop of rubber. As gambier cultivation often left plots of land that were infertile and unsuitable for further planting after a couple of years, the demand for fertile land rose exponentially. From the 1840s, the colonial government also began to regulate and impose rents for land that had previously been worked without legal title. With suitable land at a premium, disputes between planters became more frequent. These pressures on a now increasingly competitive industry explain, in part, the outbreak A photograph of bangsals (“huts” in Malay), late 19th century of the Anti-Catholic Riots of 1851. During that National Museum of Singapore Collection, Courtesy of National year, violent clashes occurred between members Heritage Board of secret societies and Chinese villagers who had converted to Christianity. The latter group stood apart from the traditional societies, and were rivals for control of the gambier industry. As converts to a foreign faith, the Chinese Christians were perceived by the secret societies to have betrayed their communities by adopting a religion that was mainly associated with Europeans at that time. Violent clashes took place at Bukit Timah Village among others, and the colonial government had to enlist the help of the police, sepoys, marines and conscripted convicts to quell the disorder. Writing in The Malay Archipelago, visiting naturalist Alfred Russel A gambier and pepper plantation, 1900s Wallace described an incident at Bukit Timah National Museum of Singapore Collection, Courtesy of National during the riots: Heritage Board 5 BUKIT TIMAH ROAD AND These convicts, most of whom were brought EARLY COLONIAL EXPLORATIONS to Singapore from the Indian subcontinent, For the colonial government, the first steps were also responsible for clearing forested towards regulating Singapore’s rural interior areas as well as hunting down tigers.