Thursday, October 18, 2007

Answers to Roundabout Quiz 1

Hey, I am so disappointed that I have to answer my own quiz questions. Nevertheless, thanks to those guys who shared information about some of the roundabouts that I had forgotten about or did not even know existed.

Anyway, here are my answers. But I have to confess that I am not 100% sure about some of them.

1) The roundabout at the junction of Queensway and Commonwealth Avenue was known as Queenstown Circus of course.

Correction. Correction answer should be Queens Circus as pointed out by reader Ngiam Shih Tung. For details go to this website. (22 Oct 2007)


2) The roundabout at the junction of Queensway, Farrer Road and Holland Road was known as Holland Circus.

3) The roundabout at the junction Alexandra Road, Queensway and Jalan Bukit Merah was known as Alexandra Circus. Actually I am just guessing here. I recall that there were some roadside barber shops nearby. They must have been relocated to Queensway Shopping Centre.

Correction. Correction answer should be Rumah Bomba Circus as pointed out by reader Ngiam Shih Tung. (22 Oct 2007)

4) The roundabout at the junction of Lorong 1, 2 and 6 Toa Payoh was known as Toa Payoh Circus. This was also a very huge one in terms of area - almost as big as the one at Queenstown.

5) The roundabout at the junction of Bukit Timah, Clementi and Anak Bukit was known as Bukit Timah Circus.

6) The roundabout at the junction of Serangoon Road, Macpherson Road and Bendemeer Road was known as Woodsville Circus. The PIE flyover there now is known as Woodsville Flyover. In Hokkien we called this place Sar Ko Chio or Three Mile Stone. There used to be many open-air hawker stalls here. When I was staying in Lorong Chuan, we occasionally come here to ‘tar pau’ supper; especially when we had friends staying over. My old friend Simon Chu was one of them.

This is a recent photo of what was formerly the Woodsville makan place. Today, there is a Kopitiam food centre at Jackson Centre and lots of other coffee shops nearby.

After this, Serangoon Road becomes Upper Serangoon Road. The junction of Upper Serangoon Road with Braddell and Bartley Roads was call Si Ko Chio (4 Mile Stone). Further down there used to be a market at Lim Tua Tow Road and this place was Gor Ko Chio (5 Miles Stone). Now you tell me where is Lak Ko Chio (6 Mile Stone).

7) The roundabout at the junction of Anak Bukit and Upper Bukit Timah Rd was known as Ewart Circus. It was removed only quite recently with the completion of the underpass joining Upper Bt Timah to Clementi Road. And there was another roundabout nearby, just in front of the Fire Station, but I don’t know the name.

And I left the toughest question to the last.


8) If you guessed that the roundabout at the junction of Lornie Road and Thomson Road, just in front of the entrance to MacRitchie Reservoir was known as MacRitchie Circus, you are only half correct. The correct answer is Bulatan MacRitchie. Why the special use of a Malay word for roundabout? I don’t know. As a student of the nearby Braddell Rise School for 5 years, I was quite familiar with this area. Furthermore, when I went to ACS and NJC, I too had to pass by this place daily from my home in Lorong Chuan.

Actually, there was another roundabout just a hundred metres or so away at the junction of Upper Thomson Road and Braddell Road. What I remember most about this junction was the beautiful Red Sealing Wax Palms that were planted there. In those days, this palm was not as common as it is today where you can find it in many homes. (Photo on left courtesy of Flickr member, Minassian)

These two roundabouts have been replaced by the Lornie Flyover some years back. Lately, this place was much in the news. They are adding another viaduct to link Lornie Road to Braddell Road. Due to the widening of Braddell Road, a very old Angsana tree was chopped down. It was sorely missed by many tree lovers like my friend Kenneth.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't attempt to answer because I thought they all had names like 'Ewart', not Queenstown, Toa Payoh, etc! I do remember some of them, though.

Wanted to ask my mum if she knew the answers but didn't get the chance to.

Lam Chun See said...

Queenstown, Toa Payoh etc. were the easy ones which I put in front. Anyway, the fact that you need to ask your mum sort of reveals your age doesn't it.

Anonymous said...

http://www.sgwiki.com/wiki/Singapore_Bus_Routes_1966

Based on the bus route information in the web page above, Alexandra Circus seems to be located at the junction of Alexandra and Tanglin Road, rather than at the junction between Queensway/Bukit Merah and Alexandra road.

Lam Chun See said...

Thank you Heng-cheong for pointing out this information. I simply cannot recall seeing a roundabout at the junction of Tanlin & Alexandra roads. Could you pls tell me which service no. you are referring to?


As I said, I was just guessing about Alexandra Circus. I took the cue from the name of the shopping area next to it which was named Alexandra Village.

Thanks for introducing me to this website. I wish I had known of it earlier becos I was trying so hard to confirm if there was really such a place called New Cemetry Road. I noticed the route for Tay Koh Yat 9A confirms my memory of that route; and that it did pass by New Cemetry Road. But funny. How come when I searched using Google, it did not bring me to this website?

Anonymous said...

Heh heh, by the time I was old enough to drive, there weren't that many circuses left. Thankfully.

HaveAHacks said...

Sadly, even the Jackson Centre KopiTiam is going to be demolished for an expansion of the PIE flyover.

Ngiam Shih Tung said...

Well,the reason you didn't get many answers is because I was on holiday :-) Anyway, holding my answer key - a 1969 street directory - here are my answers. I've also parked some images of the maps at:
http://shihtung.blogspot.com/2007/10/answers-to-lam-chun-sees-roundabout.html

1) The roundabout at the junction of Queensway and Commonwealth Avenue was known as Queenstown Circus of course.

Close. The official name was Queens Circus Ironically, during the construction of the Queensway underpass two years back, a roundabout was temporarily recreated here.

3) The roundabout at the junction Alexandra Road, Queensway and Jalan Bukit Merah was known as Alexandra Circus. Actually I am just guessing here.

Ha ha ! Good try but this one is tough. The correct answer is Rumah Bomba Circus, i.e., Fire Station Circus, probably named after the nearby Alexandra Fire Station.

5) The roundabout at the junction of Bukit Timah, Clementi and Anak Bukit was known as Bukit Timah Circus.
7) The roundabout at the junction of Anak Bukit and Upper Bukit Timah Rd was known as Ewart Circus.

Strangely enough, both of these circuses (circi ?) were marked as Bukit Timah Circus in 1969. By 1980, though, the northerly one at Anak Bukit & Upp Bukit Timah is marked as Ewart Circus.

Lam Chun See said...

Shih Tung. If only you had returned a few days earlier from your holidays, then I don't have to 'lau kui'; giving wrong answers to my own quiz questions. But never mind lah. As long as we got the correct answers finally and everyone learns something.

Thanks for taking the trouble to scan the maps and upload to your website. Hope readers will go there and take a look. I just like to add some info/remarks.

1) Holland Circus. I am pretty sure about the name Holland Circus becos I saw an old photo of MM Lee planting a tree there at Picas website. In the description, it mentioned Holland Circus.

2) How about the one in front of Bt Timah Fire Station (joining Old Jurong Road). What is the name?

Anonymous said...

There was a small traingualr roundabout at Clark Quay (could be near the bungee jumping site). It was unique because I remembered it had a public toilet on it. It was one of the filtiest public toilet I had ever used besides those in the Pearl's Hill area. Like what Chun See had described in one of his articles, you have urine flowing flowing from one end to the other end....Real gross!

Anonymous said...

Jackson Center was once the Macpherson Road Wet Market in the 1960s. I used to accompany my auntie to the market from Paya Lebar Street. There is also another similar building in Upper Serangoon Road, after Yio Chu Kang Road and Upper Paya Lebar road junction.

Lam Chun See said...

I read in the papers recently that they will be constructing an underpass to facilitate the traffic from Upp Serangoon Rd and Macpherson Rd to PIE towards Jurong. For about 2 years I had my office at Aljunied area. During peak hours, the traffic congestion here is really bad. You had to make a U-turn and Bendemeer Rd after the old Fire Station.

I must make another trip there one of these days to take some photos before they start demolition.

I had earlier blogged about ther nearby Sin Leong Restaurant here.

Anonymous said...

As long as Singaporeans aspire to own cars, despite having an efficient MRT system, more and more land would be utilised for roads,including roads underground. The govt policy is: as long as the public wants we shall provide - why not? in meantime reaping more revenue for the govt's kitty, and be ever popular for the next general election. Meanwhile Dr M would smile secretly: "my 'enemy' would drive themselves into the sea. Don't need to declare war anymore".

Lam Chun See said...

Peter. If you go to Ngiam Shih Tung's blog you can see a map of the Braddell/Thomson area and the exact location of the Little Sisters of the Poor home.