The site of the old St John's Church cemetery near Tengah Garden Avenue. - HDB
SINGAPORE: Graves at a 140-year-old church cemetery in Jurong will soon be exhumed to make way for homes in the new town of Tengah.
Located near Tengah Garden Avenue, the graves were part of the old St John’s Church cemetery.
In August, the Housing Board and National Environment Agency (NEA) published an exhumation notice for the old cemetery, which said next of kin have until April 30, 2025, to register their claims for affected graves.
They said then that the site, which sits on land zoned for residential use, needed to be cleared for future development. The homes there will be part of Tengah’s Plantation District.
An HDB spokesperson told The Straits Times that site surveys showed there could be up to 26 graves in the cemetery, which spans about 1ha – equivalent in size to about 1½ football fields.
The exact number of graves will be known only after exhumation works are completed. The cemetery is currently not accessible to the public due to ongoing works at the site.
“HDB conducted photographic documentation of the tombstones and their approximate locations as part of efforts to support the identification of the tombstones by next of kin,” said the HDB spokesperson.
The affected cemetery belonged to St John’s Church, which moved from Jurong to Farrer Road in the early 1990s, after a government decision to repossess the church’s land.
The church was renamed St John’s Chapel in 1990, and is today located within St Margaret’s School (Secondary).
St John’s Church was built in 1884, following missionary work by Reverend William Henry Gomes and Cheok Loi Fatt of the St Andrew’s Church Mission among farmers in the Jurong area.
According to a St John’s Chapel publication in 2004, the church was built on a 1.2ha plot of land donated by one of its four baptised members – a man called Hong Seng.
Hong Kah Village was established in the area after parishioners approached church leaders for a place to live, and the cemetery – which was part of the church – is believed to have been where the former villagers were laid to rest.
Raymond Goh, a member of the heritage community who researches old tombs in his free time, said among the graves that remain at the site is likely one that belongs to the land donor. He has spotted a gravestone there bearing the name of Teo Hong Seng, who died in August 1895.
Goh’s efforts to track down Teo’s descendants have thus far been unsuccessful.
He said he had stumbled upon the old church cemetery in 2008 with his brother Charles, when they were trying to locate three Chinese tombs in the vicinity of Jurong Road Track 20.
He pointed out that the cemetery contains two rare gravestones with inscriptions indicating that they belonged to people who were born during the reign of the Chinese Jiaqing Emperor, who ruled from 1796 to 1820.
“These people were born before Raffles founded Singapore in 1819, and they died in the 1860s – even before St John’s Church was founded, which adds a layer of mystery to the area’s history,” he said, adding that he hoped the authorities would find some way to keep the gravestones.
Those who register a claim for graves at the cemetery can choose to take up services by NEA’s appointed contractor. If they do so, NEA will bear the cost of exhumation, cremation, and other services such as niche allocation, inland ash scattering or a sea burial.
Angela Chong’s family has made a claim, having discovered in the last few years that her great-grandfather – the father of her paternal grandmother – is buried in the old cemetery.
The retiree said she remembers seeing a photograph in her grandmother’s photo album of a grave belonging to Ng Ah Yam, who died on Sept 23, 1944, aged 75.
But for decades, Chong did not know where the grave was located.
It was not until Chong reached out to Goh a few years ago with a photo of it that she got an answer – Goh had himself taken a photograph of the same grave during a visit to the cemetery, and recognised the gravestone in Chong’s photograph.
“While I have never met my great-grandfather, ensuring his remains are taken care of properly is the right and responsible thing to do,” said Chong, who became acquainted with Goh because of the advocacy work he had done for Bukit Brown Cemetery.
Those who wish to make a claim for remains in the former cemetery can do so at go.gov.sg/sjccexhumation - The Straits Times/ANN
