Places around P.E.E. (10) - Fuyong Estate.

Recently, one of my blog readers emailed me after coming across my Rail Mall article.
She wanted to know if I had any old photos of Fuyong Estate where Rail Mall is located and where she is presently living.

My biggest surprise when I replied to her was when I realised that she lives in the house that is next to the one where I used to live. She would have been my immediate neighbour had I not moved away! But then, that was years ago, while she just moved in recently. She loves the ambience of the small estate but unfortunately is having some issue with soil movements, perhaps due to the underground MRT tunnels being dug beneath or from some other causes.

She was hoping I might have some photos of the area behind Rail Mall which borders her house.
If you have been to Rail Mall, you would know that there is a service road that runs behind Rail Mall. The road divides the estate from the shopping arcade.

I told her that during my time at Fuyong Estate, there was no road behind those rows of shophouses that would later be converted to become Rail Mall. There was only a footpath wide enough for, believe it or not, the night soil carrier to perform his cleaning operations each day. The service road was created to serve Rail Mall in recent years.

Fuyong Estate was built in the 1950s starting with the row of Worker's Houses fronting Upper Bukit Timah Road.
Being the nearest private housing development to Princess Elizabeth Estate, it was seen as the upmarket neighbourhood to aspire to. It comprised single-storied bungalows, semi-detached houses, a few rows of terrace houses and some doubled-storied semi-detached units. In all, about a hundred houses in the estate.
These were served by several shophouses consisting of provision shops, laundry, hairdressers, charcoal shops, and other sundry shops. These all fronted Upper Bukit Timah Road. The shophouses were converted to Rail Mall in 1995.

Heritage photos of Fuyong Estate taken in the late 1970s. 

(From National Library Board's PICAS database)

Fuyong Estate was built by the philanthropist Mr Lee Kong Chian in the mid 1950s. Lee Kong Chian also donated the adjacent land at Fuyong Estate to the Salvation Army for building a children's home called the Lee Kuo Chuan Home for Children. Today this has become the Salvation Army Paisehaven Nursing Home.
The roads within Fuyong Estate are known as Jalan Asas meaning Fundamentals, Jalan Tumpu (Focus), Jalan Siap (Preparedness), Jalan Tekad (Strength and Willpower) & Jalan Uji (Challenge or Test).

When my parents moved from Princess Elizabeth Estate to Fuyong, I was really happy because I had an entire bedroom for myself. This was not possible in our previous small S.I.T. flat. I also vaguely remembered that the house was priced about $7K at that time. Even then this was a princely sum. Recently I read that houses there now sold for over $1m! Maybe we shouldn't have moved away that soon?

The KTM railway bridge is located beside Chua Eng Say Road beside Fuyong Estate.

There were also 2 kampongs that grew as an annex to the estate. One was a Malay kampong at Lorong Chamar that was built behind Fuyong on the higher elevation of the hill slopes. The other was a Chinese village that was known as Kampong Chia Eng Say. This was located between Fuyong and the Singapore Granite Quarry. Both these kampongs were demolished and the squatters re-settled by the government years ago.

An old Chinese kampong house at Chia Eng Say Road.

  Recent photos of Fuyong Estate

Bro Roger Photo Collection (1)

Bro Roger Venne is a Gabrielite brother at Boys Town Singapore.
He has been in Singapore since 1953 teaching and working with the students and staff there.
Last Saturday, I met Bro Roger as I wanted to do an article about Boys Town, one of the institutions found around our old Princess Elizabeth Estate.

I had a most enlightening 3 hour conversation with Bro Roger who opened his archives to me.
I was in 7th heaven! As Bro Roger had been the official photographer for Boys Town, his treasure trove has photos dating back to the time when Boys Town was just a small workshop called St Joseph Trade School.

Starting from this page, I will post the photos from his vast collection.
Please remember that all these photos belong to Bro Roger and if you wish to use any of these, you must get his permission for copyright respect.

Bukit Gombak Hill 1953.
The RAF radar station on the summit has not been built yet.
Notice the farms and plantations all around the hill side.

Bukit Timah Hill viewed from Chestnut Drive, 1953.
The hillsides are scarred by the Dairy Farm Granite Quarries.
In the foreground is the St Joseph Church cemetery at Chestnut Drive.

A view of the Boys Town complex in 1958. (taken from Bt Gombak)
St Joseph church is the building at the extreme right centre (partial)
In the background are the pastures of Cold Storage Dairy Farm.

The original boarding Home of Boys Town.

Related links: Boys' Town

Bukit Batok Hill

As a child, I lived at Princess Elizabeth Estate built on the flanks of Bukit Gombak hill.
In my youth, I moved to Fuyong Estate on the slopes of Bukit Timah Hill  before returning to Princess Elizabeth. Now as an adult, I live at Bukit Batok.
This meant that all my life, I have been domicile within an area of less 3 km from each another.
So I am truly a 'swa teng' person and my 'kampong' can be considered as the Hillview/Gombak/Bt Batok & Bt Timah area.

Central to this area is Bukit Batok Hill at 120m high.
As I previously mentioned in other articles, Bukit Batok Hill played a significant part during the Japanese invasion during World War II.

Map showing the World War II positions of the opposing forces surrounding Bukit Batok in Feb 1942.

Capturing Bukit Batok and Bukit Timah Hills meant that the entire area came under your control.
In those days, the hills of Gombak, Batok and parts of Bukit Timah were not as forested as it is today.
Capture of these strategic high points meant that you were able to observe and thus take control of movements in the surrounding areas. It was no stretch of imagination that some of the biggest battles were fought between the Japanese army and the British forces for control of this area.

Click on the picture for a panoramic view.

This is the view from Bukit Batok taken around 1960. The view is towards the city in the far background. Bukit Timah Hill is on the left and the Clementi/Holland area on the far right.

The strategic importance of both Bukit Batok and Bukit Timah is illustrated again in the above photo from the National Heritage site (PICAS) taken in the 1960s.
Photos shows the clear view from the summit of Bukit Timah Hill towards the West Coast area.
The housing development in the middle is Hoover Park.

Today, the views are all blocked by secondary forests due to the trees planted by NParks during the greening campaign of the 1970s &1980s.
I remember that even in the late 1970s, the view from the top of Bukit Batok was 360 degrees.
You could see the entire Jurong area from one side and also you could also see all the way to Mandai in the north.


So significant was the Battle for Bukit Batok Hill  that the victorious Japanese army built a shrine on the hilltop to commemorate the bravery of those who fought and died there.
This was the Syonan Chureito shrine built on the summit. 
They also allowed the British to erect a smaller memorial cross nearby to honour the British soldiers who perished in the battle. 

The Syonan Chureito Shrine at the summit of Bukit Batok in 1942.
The road built by British prisoners of war to the shrine is today known as Lorong Sesuai.

Nothing remains of the Syonan Chureito shrine today except for a recent heritage marker erected on the steps leading up to the summit.
Bukit Batok Hill is now part of the Bukit Batok Nature Park with the prominent Mediacorp TV broadcasting tower as its landmark.

The Batok Batok Nature Park incorporating the old granite quarry

The Mediacorp TV broadcasting tower is on the summit of Hill 345 - Bukit Batok.

A second microwave broadcast tower was built in the 1990s.

Related links:
My video of Bukit Batok Hill
http://www.spi.com.sg/spi_files/shinto_shrine/bukit_batok.htm
Infopedia on Syonan Chureito
An old Japanese war grave discovered at Bukit Batok