A last reminder perhaps that’s left of an age when distance markers played an important role in Singapore is a milestone marker that was uncovered quite recently, having long been hidden behind a tree. Discovered by Akai Chew, who recently posted his findings ‘On a Little Street in Singapore‘, the granite marker lies half buried, it’s top half carved with the number ’3′ – which does, in the position it is found in, correspond to the 3rd Milestone of what would have been a main thoroughfare taking one out of the city towards rural Singapore.
The use of ‘milestones’ as markers of a location, had by the time I came into the world, become a widespread practice in Singapore. This was possibly somewhat of a necessity, given the absence of recognisable landmarks and a clear system for addresses in many of the rural areas. It was common to hear places referred to by where they were distance-wise along a particular thoroughfare, a practice that for many who developed a habit of doing it, is being carried to this very day (examples: 9th Milestone Bukit Timah, 6th Milestone Serangoon) long after the introduction of the metric system got us thinking in kilometres.
Milestones markers, when I did became aware of them from the many drives my father made across the causeway, were not quite as noticeable in Singapore as they were along the Malaysian trunk roads. There, the markers provided a measure of the distances along points along the road to the next main town or towns. This did help in estimating the time it would take to arrive at a destination, and making those seemingly endless drives a little less monotonous.
One thing that I did remember from those days, was that ‘Singapore’ was a distance of 17 miles by road from Johor Bahru – the distance being measured to the General Post Office or G.P.O. (what is today more commonly referred to as the Fullerton Building). For an interesting insight into how this did come about, please visit James Tann’s blog, which does have a post on the subject of ‘mile zero’: The geographic centre of Singapore.
Filed under: Forgotten Places, On the roads, Reminders of Yesterday, Singapore
