There was a Chinese kampong (village) located beside the old Princess Elizabeth Estate at the
northern end of Hillview Avenue.
According to old records found at St Joseph Church at Bukit
Timah, in the closing years of the 19th century, there were some parishioners who lived in the valley between the church
and the hill that would be later called Bukit Gombak. This valley was known as the Antonia Valley and had
farms and some small gambier and pepper plantations. Thus, this kampong had a
longer history than P.E. Estate which was only built in 1952. Princess Elizabeth Estate presumably would
have been built over parts of the old kampong.
Though I lived at the ‘modern’ Princess Elizabeth Estate,
I can remember this kampong of my youth. It had a large number of typical
kampong houses occupied mainly by Chinese families. You can tell the difference
between the Chinese houses, which were built on cement foundation, from the Malay
houses which tended to be built on stilts. Many of my schoolmates at P.E.E.
School lived in this kampong.
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| Typical Chinese kampong houses found at Lorong Taluki |
Although most of the kampong folks would just be tenants,
there were some who had small farm plots on their homestead where they grew
vegetables and other crops. Some grew fruits trees like durians and
rambutans. I recalled that these farmers would carry their harvest in wicker baskets
to the old Princess Elizabeth market to sell in the morning.
There was a large coconut plantation along Lorong
Taluki which was the main track that ran from Upper Bukit Road through
the kampong to Princess Elizabeth Estate. This unpaved dirt track was the
shortcut for residents and was also used by students who studied at Boy’s Town
or the Convent at Chestnut Drive.
Just before the KTM railway line at Lorong Taluki, there
was a large scrap metal yard. I recalled that as a young boy, my school friends
and I would scrounge around the construction sites of Popular Estate being built
at that time for scrap copper wire. We would strip the plastic off the wires
and sell the copper to this scrap yard. Usually we would get only a few cents
but it was enough for us to buy ‘mica’ to make glass string for our kites.
The only time when this kampong made the news was in 1970
when one of the kampong folks discovered a four-legged chicken. The discovery
of this quirk of nature was reported in all the local newspapers and for a
while the kampong folks basked in their 15 minutes of fame.
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| Mrs Wong Yoke Siew with her 4 legged chicken. |
This kampong survived till the late 1970s when the
Housing & Development Board acquired the land to build the new HDB
Hillview Estate. Part of the old kampong land was also acquired by Ministry
of Defence (Mindef) to build their HQ Complex on the Bukit Gombak ridge.
Today, the site of the old kampong, and later Hillview Estate, will be housing the next chapter of
occupancy with the rise of The Hillier
Condominium, along with the yet
unnamed condo complex beside it.
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| New condo developments on the old kampong site. |
Related links: The HDB Hillview Estate
