Bukit Larangan

Posted by noelbynature under Buildings and Monuments, Heritage Sites and Trails
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Singapore’s Forbidden Hill is anything but forbidding today, although a trip to the hill is almost like an escape into another world, away from the bustling traffic an shopping streets of Orchard Road and the city centre below. Jerome, the Wondering Wanderer discovers that a trip to the Forbidden Hill also takes you back to many yesterdays, to 14th century Singapore, the tomb of ancient Malay kings and colonial-era buildings.

Fort Canning Hill has special significance for Jerome because as a schoolboy in SJI, he and his friends would frequently make visits up it:

A walk around Fort Canning Hill with two of my schoolmates from SJI on a quiet Sunday evening brought back memories of the Fort Canning Hill of that many of us were fond of wandering around as schoolboys back when we attended SJI in the late 1970s. The hill for many of us then, was shrouded in much mystery, as it had been when it was once referred to as “Bukit Larangan” or Forbidden Hill by the locals at the time of the arrival of the British to Singapore. The locals believed the hill to be haunted, being the burial ground of the former kings of what was once Temasek. We sometimes also went to Fort Canning Hill for our Physical Education (P.E.) lessons – the shady tracks on the hill and the gentle slopes were ideal for cross country practice.

Let Jerome bring you back on a journey through time on Fort Canning Hill, an area steeped in Singapore’s mystery and history.

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