Buried Beneath the Greenery – Singapore Street Directory #1

July 10, 2009 at 1:54 pm | Posted in itchy backside | Leave a comment
Tags: Architecture, Birdwatching, Design, Photography, Uniquely Singapore

Singapore has many strange or funny street and road names. Being Itchyfingers, we have been wondering about the origins of some of these names. One of them is this small road along Alexandra Road. I first noticed it when we drove past some time ago and had wanted to go check it out. We finally found some time to take a look recently.

So what’s so strange about this road?

It is called BURY ROAD.

What? Bury Road? Sounds creepy…why called it that? Was this place a burial
ground? Old Cemetery?

From the main road we could see one small stretch of black-and-white houses sitting on this Bury Road. We drove in and parked at the front. The moment we stepped down the car, we heard the familiar calls of rooster. I looked around and found a male and a female among the grass, but they were sensitive of our presence and quickly moved deeper in…Hence I could only manage this lousy record shot.

This male is no ordinary rooster. This is the Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus Gallus),
said to be ancestor of domesticated chickens. The most distinctive feature is
the white ear patch and a white puff at the base of the tail

Itchyfingers have seen Red Jungle Fowls in Pasir Ris Park, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, Pulau Ubin and even on the grass near the canal where I jog. There used to be more of them around, especially in Pulau Ubin. But after the culling of all poultry was done as a measure against the Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) some years back, there seems to be lesser sightings of these Jungle Fowls…poor thing…maybe some of them were mistaken as domesticated chicken and were sacrificed as a result… 😦

There was this house with a lot of visitors, it looked like they were having some gathering. Not wanting to disturb or alarm them, we quickly moved further.

Stretch of nice black and white houses facing the main road

Black-and-white wooden fencing…

Nice contrast

Reminds me of those old fashioned baskets… 😀

Right at the end there was this house…All the houses seemed to be buried
under thick vegetation and trees…so undisturbed despite the fact that they
were so close to the main road…

House number with old fashioned font…

We couldn’t see any hints or evidences that could suggest why this small road is called Bury Road. Even now when I tried to do a search on the origin of this road, I couldn’t seem to find any. 😦 Although we couldn’t find the answer, but we like the black-and-white bungalows we saw along Bury Road, something which Itchyfingers have always wanted to take photos of but couldn’t have done it earlier when we weren’t driving, as many of them are quite inaccessible via public transport. Hence this visit to Bury Road would be the beginning of Itchyfingers‘ search for more old black-and-white bungalows in Singapore! 😀

Also see related posts:
> Gimme a Lift
> When Margaret Meets the Queen #2
> When Margaret Meets the Queen #1
> Growing Up in A One-Room Flat
> A Narrow Escape
> Secret Garden in the Last Kampong
> Balek Kampong – A Return to Village Dwelling
> Far From the Madding Crowd