Bukit Batok Brickworks 1972 - 1995.

  On a few occasions in the past, I mentioned the Bukit Batok Brickworks a number of times in my blog or on other socmed platforms.  Most of the responses were like “Oh, really? Was there one? I didn’t know that”. And due to it being such a trivial bit of nostalgia, it soon became lost in the ocean of information or worse, misinformation. And most have forgotten about it.

The HDB Brickworks at Track 14, Old Jurong Road.
This was the only picture I could find showing the brickworks externally.
Photo taken from the Straits Times archives, Nov 1993.

Recently, an opportunity arose for me to recount the presence of this little known forgotten facility. This was how it came about...

National Library Board (NLB) closed its public library at Bukit Batok in 2024.
It was to undergo a two year revamp and rebuild from 2024 to 2026, and was slated to reopen in March 2026. It will be located inside WestMall @ Bukit Batok.
As part of the overall programme to highlight their newest refurbished and modern library, the NLB in conjunction with the National Archives of Singapore (NAS), started a long-term heritage project to collect memories and memorabilia about Bukit Batok. It is called Bukit Batok: Hills, Home, Heritage., which would be part of their overall “Singapore Memories” Project. (https://www.singaporememories.gov.sg)

The NAS/NLB team searched the internet for more, and perhaps, unknown facts about the region. That's when they came across this blog, which is basically my life story over the past seven decades that I lived in this area.
In October 2025, I received an invitation to meet them, and perhaps to do an interview about my past experiences living in Bukit Batok.
And so it was that I have till now contributed eight hours of oral submissions about my history and relationship to Bukit Batok. "Telling my grandfather stories" as I said to my friends.

One of the most surprising trivia to them was learning that there was once a full-fledged brickworks in Bukit Batok that was directly owned and operated  by the Housing and Development Board, the HDB!

In the 1960s, when the HDB was formed to tackle the housing problems in Singapore, they depended initially on the nine major brickworks in Singapore for the supply of bricks for their building programme.

Most of the operating brickworks in Singapore at the time were in the Jurong region. Nanyang Brickworks, Sin Chew Brickworks, Jurong Brickworks, Goh Bee Brickworks and Asia Brickworks were some of these, with others further afield, like Alexandra Brickworks and Tekong Brickworks.

By the end of the 1960s, the HDB still depended on these independent suppliers, but were subjected to erratic supply conditions and price fluctuations.
To ensure minimal disruption to their ever growing building programmes, the HDB decided to set up their own brickworks. Thus, in 1972, the HDB Brickworks was set up at the then rural Track 14, off Jurong Road.

The earthen clay in the Jurong region had the ideal qualities for making bricks.

In their first year of production, the Bukit Batok Brickworks produced 17 million bricks - the ubiquitous red bricks we recognise in almost all of the HDB flats being built at the time.
Year by year, they raise their production levels from that initial 17m bricks to 35m in 1977, to 40m bricks by 1979. With the addition of a second kiln, they were able to ramp up to 80m bricks annually in the 1980s.
The HDB brickworks had the most modern production line of its time in Singapore. Eventually, the HDB Brickworks had more than sufficient output that they even began to supply bricks to private construction projects in Singapore.

Bricks being stack at the HDB Brickworks.
(Source: HDB Annual Report 1978)

Bricks made at the HDB Brickworks
(Source: HDB Annual Report 1978)

In 1980, the HDB began experimenting with pre-fabrication as the newer technology to speed up the building of flats.

A French company GTM-Coignet was contracted to build prefabricated components like walls and staircases. However, this was not like today’s pre-cast concrete flat components.
It was more a hybrid experiment using both bricks and concrete. Fabricated off-site and ferried to the construction site and assembled. This was said to speed up the construction by 40%.

The early experimental units were known as the A-model flats, which were built initially at Yishun, Tampines and Bukit Batok. My first flat in 1984 was one of these at Blk 203 Bukit Batok, a 25-storey point block built in this manner.

The pre-fabrication of these flat components were done on the same grounds of the HDB Brickworks, eventually taking over the entire site when the HDB decided to close the HDB Brickworks in 1993.

The HDB Pre-Fabrication factory site at Bukit Batok West Ave 3.
The little track between the HDB blocks and the factory was the former Track 14,
Old Jurong Road, that would be developed into Bukit Batok West Ave 3.
Picture was taken in 1986. The HDB flats on the right are Blk 134-136 Bukit Batok West.
Today the former factory site is occupied by the Millenia Institute and Eden School.

By 1990, the Singapore Government had already decided that brickworks were not a viable industry given the issues that brickworks were facing. Complaints of air pollution, noise, soot and dust from making bricks, and the environmental damage in mining the clay, eventually led to all the brickworks being closed in Singapore. External supplies from overseas became the norm with brick suppliers from countries such as South Africa, Australia and Taiwan filling in the void.

As Bukit Batok New Town grew in size beyond the 1990s and 2000s, the pre-fab factory at Bukit Batok West Ave 3 was moved to Woodlands. I believe now they are based in Senai, Johor where the pre-cast concrete method is the latest technology used in making HDB flat components.

Is it no wonder that the area where the HDB Brickworks once stood is today a sub-zone of Bukit Batok New Town called “Brickworks”. On this former HDB Brickworks site today sits the Eden School and the Millenia Institute education facilities along was is now Bukit Batok West Ave 3.

Cliffhanger! Did you already know of this brickworks at Bukit Batok?
Then, you might be surprised by another bit of trivia.
Did you also know that all your kitchen and bathroom ceramic tiles, as well as the external decorative tiles in your estate were also made by a HDB factory? The factory was also in Bukit Batok!
Come back to my blog and perhaps you'll find that I will reveal it in one of my articles.

Southern view from Bukit Batok hill summit 1960.

It has been a long while since I updated my kampong blog!


Perhaps my memories are fading with age, and all that I can remember has been said? 


But once in a while some lucid snaps and trifles still pop up. Here’s one…



This is a photo from the records of NAS (Nat’l Archives Singapore) taken from the summit of Bukit Batok (hill) looking south. Stated as being shot in 1960, so this would be before the RTS TV transmission tower was built. 

View from summit of Bukit Batok (hill) looking south. 1960.  Photo credit NAS
Click on picture for enlarged detailed view.

The long white buildings.

Prominent in this picture is the row of buildings in the middle right.
These were the then newly built (1959) schools called Bukit Batok East Primary School and Bukit Batok West Primary School. These buildings are still standing there today! 


Due to falling enrolment over the years, these two schools were later merged into one, and eventually moved to a new location at Toh Tuck. Today, the school is known as Bukit Timah Primary School relocated nearby at Lorong Kismis.


Over the years since, the original premises have been leased out mainly as private educational facilities. It was once used as a vocational school, the German International School, as well as a religious organisation creche, and today by the Sparks kindergarten. 


Recently, the land was re-zoned for housing development and a new condominium called THE SEN is being built.


The original Hillview Estate
On the left, between the schools and Upper Bukit Timah Road were some plots of land that were once owned by colonial rubber planters before World War II.
On one of these plots was a colonial style plantation house, which the owner named ‘Hillview Estate’. 


During World War II, this colonial house became the Headquarters of the Australian Army Division that was sent from Australia in 1941 to defend Malaya and Singapore.
There is a ‘famous’ PR photo of the Commanding Officer, Maj-Gen Gordon Bennett, taken at Hillview Estate amidst the rubber trees, speaking to war correspondents before the Japanese Invasion of Singapore. 

Maj-Gen Gordon Bennett at a press conference with war correspondents in 1942
at the army headquarters at Hillview Estate.

Beside this historical significance, more importantly, the rubber plantation ‘Hillview Estate’, was the reference used when the Singapore Rural Board started building new factories on the northern end of Bukit Batok Hill. The 'Hillview' label was used to name the new roads leading into the area,  Hillview Road and Hillview Avenue.

Thus, beginning from 1947, the region north-west of Bukit Batok hill, more specifically the valley between Bukit Batok and Bukit Gombak, came to be known as "Hillview".

The junction of Hillview Road with Upper Bukit Timah Road (9-1/2 ms)
The name 'Hillview' was used in reference to the nearby colonial Hillview Estate.

HILL 145

In the centre of the photo was a huge open patch of vacant land, which on some topographic maps is usually labeled as Hill 145. 

From the late 1960s onwards, this hill would be developed for private landed properties and would be first known as Bukit Timah Park, and later as Hoover Park.

 

The land on the hill was originally bought and owned in majority by Mr. Cheong Chin Nam in 1923 to expand his rubber business.


Unfortunately, Cheong Chin Nam died before his plans for a rubber plantation could be fully achieved. The land was thus held in trust for the Cheong family, who leased it out piecemeal and collected rent as the main source of revenue.
There were no real developments on it due to the poor economic situation at the time.


However, the Cheong family did leave their legacy on the land with roads named after Mr Cheong Chin Nam himself, his wives Yuk Tong and Tham Soong, and for his father Cheong Chun Tin.
Cheong Chin Nam was also instrumental in further developing what would become the early Beauty World Town at Bukit Timah Village. The last remaining row of conserved pre-war buildings along Jalan Jurong Kechil was also built by Cheong Chin Nam.
Today, his legacy continues with his grandson, Dr Cheong Pak Yean, still operating his medical practice from one of the units along that same stretch of conserved pre-war shophouses.
(Trivia: At the far end of this conserved stretch of pre-war houses are the two existing houses that were used as 'comfort houses' for Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation)

During World War II, in Feb 1942 when the Japanese Army, advancing from Bukit Panjang to capture Bukit Timah Village, soldiers from their 5th Division cross over this hilltop in their push towards Bukit Timah Village on the other side. 

On Japanese war records, this hill was noted as “Buki Chitaram”; while local records showed that land on the hill was leased to a Mr. Chittabaram who had a banana plantation there.
Though there is no written evidence, I really wonder if that was the reason the internal roads there are all named after various banana species?
Maybe, someone reading this can throw some light on this?




Magnolia Creameries.

In the photo, between Hill 145 and Hillview Estate, there is a tower of some sort.
This was the chimney of the new Cold Storage Magnolia Creameries. It started operations in 1961 to process cow's milk that came from the nearby Singapore Dairy Farm, that was owned by Cold Storage as well.
The factory later expanded, adding a bakery line to produce their Sunshine brand of breads.
You can read more about the Magnolia Creamery here at this link:-  Magnolia Creameries


The Tank Road-Woodlands Railway.

For those who are unaware of this fact, the first Singapore railway line in 1903 ran from Tank Road at River Valley to Kranji and ended at Woodlands.

From the Woodlands Station, you could take a ferry across to Johore Bahru, as the Causeway was not built until 1922.


This railway track ran from Tank Road, across Cairnhill to Newton, and from Newton it ran parallel to the Rochore Canal (or more commonly called the Bukit Timah Canal today) all the way to north Bukit Timah Village.


From Bukit Timah Village, it followed Jurong Road (Jalan Jurong Kechil today) for a short distance and crossed it at the western slope of Hill 145 (the dotted yellow line in the photo) towards Upper Bukit Timah Road. It then ran alongside with Upper Bukit Timah Road towards Kranji. 


The Tank Road-Kranji Railway was removed in 1936 when the new KTM railway line replaced the older Kranji line.
The only remnant of this old Tank Road-Kranji railway line is a side track from Jalan Jurong Kechil (yellow box on map below) that follows the original alignment of the railway line. 

The side road is also called Jalan Jurong Kechil.
 

Hock Soon Warehouse

The Hock Soon Warehouse, sited on the main Upper Bukit Timah, sat on what was once the Hock Soon Rubber Factory beside the Amoy Canning factory (maker of the Green Spot drink of old). The Hock Soon Warehouse was an office/warehouse complex that had several renowned companies located within, including a showroom for Honda Motors on the ground floor.
Today, this site is occupied by the Southhaven II condominium.


1960 vs. 2025

Here is the original unedited photo from NAS of the landscape compared to a Google Earth view from a similar angle.

PEES 1st School Magazine 1962

Back in 2012, I showed snippets of the first ever PEES school magazine Vol 1 No 1, issued in 1962.
Back then, I was unable to obtain facsimiles of all the inside pages. (Link here:- School Magazine of 1962)

Finally, I can now show you the entire magazine. 
Should anyone of you can still remember or recall your memories from that time, I would love to hear from you. I really love the old adverts. I wonder how many of the advertisers are still around now?
I had a really good laugh when, poignantly, I saw the last advert inside was from Singapore Casket!! ha ha.
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