A Private Burial Ground at Bukit Timah

Thanks to Raymond Goh who blogged about it, who in turn knew its existence from his tour participants, we now know of a surviving private burial ground in Bukit Timah. Unlike the one at Fifth Avenue which I just blogged, this one at Sian Tuan Ave actually has the tomb still intact!

I visited the tomb on the same day as the (missing) one at Fifth Ave. It was a whirlwind tour; it had to be in order to take advantage of the distance-based fares. After the fare structure was revised last year, commuters are now not penalized for making transfers. So while I paid a hefty $2.07 for the train to Botanic Gardens, the bus to Sian Tuan Ave set me back by only $0.03, another bus to Fifth Ave only $0.01, and the bus back to Botanic Gardens $0.03. In other words, you pay only $0.07 more to tour the two cemetery sites, compared to if you just wander around the Botanic Gardens. By the way I did both, to squeeze maximum value out of my transport fares (remember I still have to buy a ticket to go home). I bet this is not something you can find in any Circle Line sightseeing itinerary.

How I took advantage of distance-based fares. Remember the two rules: take different bus services for trip 2, 3 and 4; from alighting to boarding the next bus spend not more than 45 minutes.

It is possible to explore the cemetery and board the next bus before your 45 minutes is up. You may even have time to take a sip (takeaway of course) from this coffee shop at the start of Sian Tuan Ave.

Between the Sian Tuan Ave and Binjai Walk houses is a strip of state land. The tomb is concealed on one of the terrace and invisible unless you make an effort to climb the slope. Don't do this at night.

Tucked in-between the two rows of houses at Sian Tuan Ave and Binjai Walk is a narrow strip of land - a  green corridor - that contains one of the greatest secrets in the neighborhood. Well-concealed by the terraced slopes, the tomb is invisible until you make your way up to the terrace it sits on. It must be quite traumatic for the innocent passerby, who stumbles on it while trespassing in this green corridor. The sloping terrain and undisturbed environment is a godsend; since it was erected, it must have enjoyed good fengshui like the one at Fifth Ave and in peaceful tranquility.

The fengshui enjoyed by the tomb. Without trees and houses blocking, the view would have been more spectacular.

Since the strip of land is state-owned today (by SLA), it is possible that the agency has been maintaining it, which explains the manicured back-garden look than wilderness associated with old and abandoned cemeteries. From what is known in Raymond's blog, the tomb was erected in 1890 by Tan Quee Lan (incidentally I blogged about him here) and ownership of the land it sits changed hands in 1938 from a descendant of the deceased to a buyer with the peculiar condition that the grave shall not be entered upon or interfered with. This could explain why the tomb is still un-exhumed despite the extinction of private burial grounds in Singapore. Do prove me wrong by another example of an untouched tomb like this.

I'm curious why the burial ground is in such secluded spot between two rows of houses so I turn to my pet topic 'historical geography' for answers. I'm not aware of the landscape in 1900 but by the late 1930s Binjai Walk had been laid out and the surrounding land subdivided into plots, presumably for housing. This is a little surprising as the houses at Binjai Walk do not look pre-war from Google Map, perhaps the original had been demolished. Nevertheless this suggests that the tomb once adjoined empty land, probably a plantation, before Sian Tuan Ave was laid out. By the 1960s Sian Tuan Ave and the Hong Kong Park houses had appeared on the map, the green corridor formed, with the neighborhood's best-kept secret on it.

The strip of land in late 1930s and 1950s. The tomb would be located at the top of the narrow strip of land. When the Hong Kong Park houses were built along Sian Tuan Ave, the land strip was isolated leading to today's green corridor.

Raymond wrote a well-researched article and it was reported on Wanbao. However when you compare what was blogged and what was reported, it seems that the tabloid did not do a good job. There are discrepancies on the year Tan Quee Lan, the man who erected the tomb, died (was it 1904 or 1907?); the identity of the man who sold the land; and the property developer who bought the land. These questions just beget other questions. For example, did Sian Tuan Properties Pte Ltd buy the land in 1982? Why would it buy the land but build nothing on it, and has this company anything to do with the road of the same name? Intriguing!

The grand tomb of Tan Quee Lan's wife Madam Gan. The inscriptions are so clear, the tombstone so clean that I suspect somebody must be maintaining it. It does not look like an abandoned tomb to me.

Up close with the tombstone. The center carving (中榜) reads: 清显妣谥贞勤陈门甘氏孺人之佳城