Hillview HDB Estate

In the early 1970s, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) announced the building of a new Bukit Batok Estate that would "serve as an extension of Princess Elizabeth Estate". This was long before the construction of the later Bukit Batok New Town that would be carved out of the rural Jurong area.

When completed, the  Bukit Batok estate was renamed Hillview Estate. It was located adjacent to the old SIT Princess Elizabeth Estate, along Hillview Avenue, off Upper Bukit Timah Road. Hillview Estate comprised 13 blocks of flats, with a food centre, a wet market, a new community centre and a row of 2 storey shophouses. These were constructed between 1975 and 1978.

The design of the HDB flats was of the then standard slab block type comprising 3 and 4 room flats. In addition, there were three 20-storey blocks of 5 room flats which had a good vista of Bukit Gombak, Dairy Farm or Bukit Timah Hill. A planned block (blk #9) of 2-room flats was never built.

The Hillview Estate (centre) as seen from Bukit Gombak/ Jalan Gumilang.
The low rise buildings in the middle background is Dairy Farm Condo over across Upp Bukit Timah Road.
Fuyong Estate is at the top right, on the slope of Bukit Timah Hill ridge.

The building of the new Hillview Estate actually hastened the demise of the older Princess Elizabeth estate. The government's focus then was on home ownership and P.E.E. residents were encouraged to purchase flats at Hillview Estate instead of relying on rental from the HDB. Rent for a SIT flat at that time was between $24 to $46 a month! However, government policy at that time was home ownership and thus, as residents slowly moved away, the old SIT flats were mothballed and not released for further leases.

The shopkeepers and market stall vendors at the old P.E. Estate were given options to move into the new wet market or HDB shophouse at Hillview Estate. Sadly, this migration left P.E.Estate looking somewhat like a ghost town by the mid 1980s when all the P.E. residents were finally evicted and offered alternative homes at Bukit Gombak.

Hillview Estate itself lasted till 1999 when it was placed under the biggest HDB SERS* relocation plan. The entire estate was to be demolished and residents were moved enbloc to new HDB homes at Bukit Batok New Town. (*SERS= Selective Enbloc Relocation Scheme)

The new apartment blocks at Bukit Batok New Town where the Hillview residents were relocated enbloc.

I had relatives in 4 families living at Hillview at that time and I know that there were lots of unhappiness over the SERS program. Many residents felt betrayed as they were promised new amenities and improvements to their estate by politicians. Instead, after deposing the opposition who ran the constituency, the residents were informed of the destruction of their neighbourhood.

Like Princess Elizabeth Estate which was bulldozed in the late 1980s, Hillview estate was progressively torn down starting with the eviction from 1995 and the area left vacant until 2010 when the land was sold to condominium developers.

I would love to hear from ex-residents of Hillview Estate and if you do have a photo you would like to share, please send it to me here.

Where are these Artisan Quarters?

I found a close up picture of the Princess Elizabeth Estate artisan quarters.
As far as I know, the only SIT development that had this kind of design was built only at PEE.
That is why I am sure that this row of houses is at Princess Elizabeth (but I could be wrong...details further on)

16 rows of this design were built as a result of the Princess Elizabeth Wedding Fund, catering to the housing needs of the low income people after the post war period. The SIT enlarged the development of Princess Elizabeth Estate by building the multi-storey blocks adjacent to these single storey units.

In other words, there were actually 2 different sections to Princess Elizabeth Estate. The single storey artisan quarters were built from the contributions and donations to the Princess Elizabeth Wedding. The multi-storey section were built with funding directly from SIT and not the Wedding Fund.

If you delve into the development history at that time, you'll find that there were disagreements and squabbles leading to delays and finger pointing among the colonial depts, the municipal commissioners, the Wedding Fund committee and the SIT over who should build, collect rent and even administer the estate. Eventually, the SIT was 'appointed' to lead the development, build and administer the estate.

In the above picture, I am unable to identify which block this is due to the lack of surrounding features. Even the tall Casaurina trees throw me off track as I can't recall any Casaurina trees behind any of those row of houses. Can anyone attempt to place these units?

Worse comes to worst, I may be totally wrong as this row of houses may not even be at PEE !
The reason I say this is that I do not recall that the front door of the artisan quarters being in a perpendicular position to the recessed windows. Or did some units have them?

By the way, the picture above was extracted from the National Archive of Singapore photo website.
This is their PICAS site. You can view lots of old pictures of Singapore at this site.
In fact, many years back I spotted a photo of the old shop market that was built at PEE in 1967.
However, I remembered it was mis-labelled and up to today I am still hunting for that particular picture amongst the many thousands. I hope to find it in the archive and put it up here.
Can you help to search as well?

This is a sketch of how that picture looked like....

Sliding downhill after school.

Today's generation of school children are so hothoused that by the time they are admitted to Primary One, they would have already had at least a year of nursery school and 2 years of kindergarten. All of them would already be well versed in their ABCs and 123s. All can read and write the alphabet.

Like most of my peers during my time in the 1960s, I learned my ABCs and 123s in Primary One.
Only a few more enlightened or privileged children went to kindergarten.

I can still recall the first time going to school in Primary One, feeling lost in that strange environment and yearning for my mother, who with the other mothers would be peering from outside the classroom windows. My class teacher at Princess Elizabeth Estate School in Primary 1C was Miss Tan Gek Eng.

In the beginning, all the primary one pupils did not have any books.
What we had was a personal blackboard and duster, which we would carry each day to school.
It was on this tablet, that we were introduced to A for Apple, B for Boy and C for Cat.

Our personal blackboard was similar to this with alphabets and numbers printed on the edges.

It was only after we could manage our ABCs on the blackboard that we were given sheets of paper and pencils to begin writing.

However, the blackboard, which was actually green in colour, was not redundant for us.
We had other uses for it outside of school, the most common of which was to use it as a slide board.

As Princess Elizabeth Est was built on a hillside there were lots of slopes which became our sliding grounds. The best slope was in front of block 20 as it was the longest and had the best angle for sliding downhill. Children could always be seen each evening playing with their old blackboards sliding downhill.

The slope at Block 22 was too flat while the slopes in front of blocks 21 and  23 were too steep and dangerous, which didn't stop the foolhardy anyway.

Occasionally, some children would find cardboard boxes but these were quite rare as the shopkeepers  were reluctant to give it away. Those riding the cardboard boxes always pretended they were 'driving' down the hill.

The best slide slope, in front of block 20.

Photos from ex-residents. (3)

I am really encouraged and appreciate the responses from readers to this blog.
I recently received 2 photographs from ex-residents of Princess Elizabeth Estate.

The first is from Anne Moss who used to live at 126A Princess Anne Hill.

The photo is of an event most probably held at the primary school in the late 1950s.
(Blackboard in the background and guests sitting on staff chairs)
Only a few in the group have been identified and if you recognise any one else, I would be most pleased to hear from you.

The gentleman seated 3rd from right is Mr Ponnusamy, the first Principal (1952-1959) of PEE School.
Anne's parents, Mr & Mrs Moss, are on the extreme right (seated and standing behind)
Front row seated extreme left is Mr Barkar. Standing back row 3rd from left is Mr Lawrence Chia.
Gentleman in gray suit in the middle standing is Dr Raja from the Raja Clinic.
The bibik in the kebaya, 2nd from left) is Mrs Ong Thye Watt with Mr Ong standing behind (in grey suit)


This 2nd photo is from Brenda Phua, taken on the day of their 1st Holy Communion.
Photo was taken at the verandah of their flat.

Our Park is missing !

Princess Elizabeth Estate seems notorious for losing its stuff.
The Tong Liang House virtually vanished overnight.
Our football field was partially lost when Hillview Estate encroached onto it.
(The HDB built a car park over it!)

But the one thing that was taken away from Princess Elizabeth Estate without most residents noticing was the loss of the Park!
It was done so subtlely that a whole later generation who grew up at P.E. Est. were not even aware that there was formerly a Park.
What I am referring to is not actually a piece of greenery but the official name of the estate - Princess Elizabeth Park.
The loss was tantamount to a re-identity for the estate but few knew or even cared.

When the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the predecessor of HDB, constructed the estate, it was one of a pair of estates that were built in commemoration of the royal wedding of 1947. The other estate was built at Farrer Park at the old Race Course Road area.

As they were part of the same project, both these estates were collectively known as Princess Elizabeth Estates, much like today we refer generically to HDB New Towns.
The estate at Farrer Park was named Princess Elizabeth Flats, while the estate at Upper Bukit Timah was named Princess Elizabeth Park.
However, this common name of Princess Elizabeth Estate led to confusion for many for years.



The Princess Elizabeth Estate at Farrer Park (pictured above) was demolished by 1978 and was replaced by new HDB flats in the area now known as Pek Kio.

In the case of P.E.E at Hillview, the name was colloquially used without the 'Park' especially when the community centres and the primary school were named without the 'Park' included.   Eventually, the name stuck and and everyone simply knew the estate as Princess Elizabeth Estate.

There was a signboard at Princess Elizabeth Estate erected by the SIT to announce the gift of the estate to Princess Elizabeth on her wedding. The signboard was located at a small field at the junction of Hillview Avenue and Elizabeth Drive at the entrance to the estate.

When the HDB built Hillview Estate beside PEE, they moved the signboard to a new location at the boundary between the 2 estates (beside the PEE football field).  

However, the HDB made some changes and in place of the original label Singapore Improvement Trust, they wrote "Housing and Development Board" on that heritage sign.  sigh. Sadly, they also made some grammatical errors with the new signboard.

Cradle of faith at Hillview

In today's Sunday Times, it was reported that the Eastern Orthodox Church had appointed a new bishop, Fr Konstatinos Tsilis, to look after the growing Orthodox Church population in Singapore.

I had known that the Orthodox Church had been using rented premises from the Roman Catholics somewhere in Serangoon, but what surprised me was finding out that a 2nd congregation existed right here at Hillview Avenue.

The Russin Orthodox Church at Jalan Dermawan, Hillview.

So I did a google and found out that they are established at Jalan Dermawan. And something else more interesting, they are located by the haunted Hillview Mansion that I had blog about earlier!  Well, if any paranormal hunters visiting the Mansion need an exorcist quick, they are in luck! just kidding.

In fact, you may be surprised to learn that Princess Elizabeth Estate and Hillview were the roots of some established churches in Singapore.

In the very early 1950s, a group of Finnish Missionaries were evicted from China by the Communists. They came to Singapore and were given a shophouse at Princess Elizabeth Estate by the SIT to establish a 'church' for their missionary activities. Just to clarify for non christians reading this, a 'church' does not necessarily mean a building.

I do not know of this Finnish Missionary group myself, being too young then, but my mother remembers this group of ang mohs who went around singing and preaching. They always appeared happy and willing to converse. My mom remembers they could speak Chinese though not the Teochew or Cantonese which most PEE residents spoke.

This is just based on hearsay but I heard that their success was also their downfall as some colonial 'powers that be' did not see their activities based in SIT shophouses as proper. Their lease was not renewed and they moved out of PEE. They were said to have gone to Tiong Bahru where eventually they helped set up a church there (Zion Road Free Gospel Church).

                  Missionary persecutions even in Singapore.

Another church that started out of PEE was formed by a group of friends.
One of them being my ex-classmate Tay Buan Tiong. Buan Tiong was in PEES and his mother ran the yong tau foo stall at the  school tuckshop. We both went to the same secondary school but he later transferred to another technical school during secondary two.
At this technical secondary school, Buan Tiong and some friends became fervent christians and started proselyting. They went around PEE with their bibles trying to get people to hear their message of salvation and succeeded in gathering a large congregation. I believe that they met for worship at a house somewhere also at Jalan Dermawan. Hmm, holy hills?


If I am correct,  this church which they started is now the World Revival Prayer Fellowship, a Pentecostal church, located in Aljunied. Another of my ex-classmate, Kenny Chee, is currently the senior pastor at this church. Kenny and his wife Jenny were also ex-residents of P.E. Estate.

The Class of 1979 at PEES

 The following photos were all taken in 1979. If you were studying at P.E.E.S. 33 years ago, you would be in one of these pictures. Do drop a line and tell us of your days at the old school.
Click on the photos for a detailed view.

Princess Elizabeth Estate School

Prefects

Brownies

Cadet Scouts 1403 Pack

Red Cross

Badminton Team

Sepak Takraw Team

Table Tennis Team

Primary 1A. Mrs Wendy N Bava.

Primary 1B. Mrs Jane Pereira.

Primary 1C. Mrs K Krishna.

Primary 1D. Ms Lim Choon Hui.

Primary 2A. Ms Loi Sok Khiang.

Primary 2B. Mrs Chan Yuet Sim.

Primary 2C. Mrs Ng Ko Kim.

Primary 2D. Mrs Elizabeth Cherian.

Primary 3A. Mr Ho Kam Loong.

Primary 3B. Mdm Khew Kang Nyong.

Primary 3C. Mrs Mary Anne Koh.

Primary 3D. Mr Chua Koon Kok.

Primary 3E. Mr Ooi Kew Ghee.

Primary 4A.  Ms Hasiave Abdullah.

Primary 4B. Mr Mohd Fadzuli Bajuri.

BC4. Mr Tay Whye Urn.

Primary 4C. Mr Robert Yeo.

Primary 4D. Mrs P Pancharatnam.

Primary 5A.  Ms Agnes Lim

Primary 5B.  Ms Alus Zam Zam

Primary 5C.  Mrs K Kannan.

Primary 5D.  Mr Liow Poh Yong.

Primary 6A.  Mrs M Dairianathan.

Primary 6B.  Mr Said Talib.

Primary 6C.  Mr Yeo Kian Ho.

Primary 6D.  Ms Hoon Sow Leng.

Primary 6E.  Mr Tirlok Singh.

Primary 6F.  Mr Jimmy Tan Cheng Kwang.

Photos of the school teaching staff and the school band are located in another blog here.