What is possibly one of the last natural accessible stretches of sand along the coastline of the island of Singapore lies along the northern shoreline off Sembawang Park, stretching to the area off the former coastal villages of Kampong Wak Hassan and Kampong Tengah. Except for the attempt to “renew” the area around Sembawang Park which will result in it losing much of its previous charm, the shoreline in the area is one that is relatively untouched. Left in an almost natural state, the beach is one rich in character and in which the memories of a world that has ceased to exist can still be found. With property developments gaining pace in the area, it probably will not be long before the memories provided by the old but falling seawall and the natural beach, are paved over in the same way much of our previously beautiful coastline has. Until then, it is one of the few places close to a world I would otherwise find hard to remember, in which I can find a rare escape from the concretised world that Singapore has too quickly become.
About the former Kampong Wak Hassan:
The former village (kampong or kampung as it is spelt today), was one of several coastal villages that were found just to the east of Sembawang Road and the former British Naval Base, running along the coastline to Tanjong Irau at the mouth of Sungei Simpang. While the coastline played host to the nomadic inhabitants of the Straits of Johor, the Orang Laut, specifically the Orang Seletar, the kampong, stands as the oldest of the settlements in the stretch.
The village came to the location after work to build the huge naval base which ran along the northern coast from what is today Sembawang Road west to to the Causewayin the late 1920s displaced the the original Kampong Wak Hassan which grew from a coconut grove founded by Wak Hassan bin Ali at the original mouth of Sungei Sembawang (the area just west of what is today Sembawang Shipyard) in the 1914 (being granted rights by the Straits Settlements’ Commissioner of Lands to the use of the land stretching from the mouth of the river to Westhill Estate – which became Chong Pang Village).
While the base did provide residents of the village with employment opportunities, most of the villagers who may have originally been employed in rubber plantations which once occupied the lands around the coast and in the coconut groves, were involved in fishing.
The village besides being the oldest in the area, was also the longest lasting. While most of the inhabitants of the other villages were resettled at the end of the 1980s, the last inhabitants of Kampong Wak Hassan only moved out as recently as in 1998.
Previous posts related to Kampong Wak Hassan and the greater Sembawang area:
- 13 Feb 2012: A final frontier
- 25 Dec 2012 : The largest dock east of the Suez
- 24 Aug 2012 : A memory of a forgotten time
- 16 Jul 2012 : Last post standing
- 29 Mar 2011 : Sembawang beyond the slumber
A place to greet the new day:
- 30 Mar 2013 : A sunrise to remember
- 9 Feb 2013 : Sunrise over a world the sun may soon set on
- 30 Jan 2013 : Another Wak Hassan sunrise
- 30 Jan 2013 : Mornings far from the madding crowds
- 20 Dec 2012 : Two December’s Sunrises
- 1 Nov 2012 : The sun sets as dawn breaks
- 17 Aug 2012 : Sailing off into the sunrise
- 9 Aug 2012 : The sun rises on independent Singapore’s 47th birthday
- 2 Aug 2012 : Varying moods of a most beautiful place
- 24 Jul 2012 : A new morning, a new joy
- 25 Jun 2012 : The joy of the morning
- 22 Jun 2012 : A face in the cloud
- 7 Jun 2012 : The sun rises in the north
- 31 May 2012 : The song of a forgotten shore
Filed under: Coastal Areas, Forgotten Places, Nature, Quiet Moments, Reminders of Yesterday, Sembawang, Singapore
