What Was Redhill Before Redhill? | Bukit Merah, the Swordfish Legend, Kampongs and the Hill Before the Housing Estate

SINGAPORE / ESTATE HISTORY / REDHILL

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By The Memory desk · Historical reference · Sources checked 7 October 2026

Before Redhill was an MRT stop and a ring of HDB blocks, it was a hill of red laterite earth, Bukit Merah in Malay, where Chinese cultivators grew gambier and pepper from the 1850s, brick kilns used the clay, and burial grounds covered the slopes. Ling Shan Temple was built on one of those burial hills in 1879, and in 1955 the Singapore Improvement Trust put up the seven-storey blocks of Redhill Close, the estate most people still picture when they hear the name.

So Redhill history has two strands that are easy to confuse. One is the ground itself, with its soil, plantations, cemeteries and kampongs, and the housing estates that replaced them. The other is a legend about a boy, a swarm of swordfish and a hill stained with blood, which explains the name in a more dramatic way. This guide keeps the two apart and dates what can be dated.

Redhill history at a glance

Location	South-western central Singapore, south-east of Queenstown, west of Tiong Bahru and north of Mount Faber, in the Bukit Merah planning area
Name	English for Bukit Merah, “red hill”, after the red laterite soil; a Malay legend gives a second explanation
Before the estates	Gambier and pepper from the 1850s, brick kilns, small rubber plantations and cemeteries, including Leng Kee Hill
First public housing	Redhill Close, built by the Singapore Improvement Trust in 1955
Known for	The “seven-storey” blocks of Redhill Close, Ling Shan Temple, Redhill Market and the former HDB headquarters at Bukit Merah Central
What it is today	A mature HDB district served by Redhill MRT station (1988), with Redhill Close being replaced by new flats

Why is it called Redhill?

The plain answer is the soil. The Singaporean Mandarin Database, run by the Promote Mandarin Council, says the area was originally hilly and took its name from its red laterite earth, which proved good for making bricks, so that brick factories grew up there. The Chinese name, Ang Sua or Hong Shan, is a direct translation of the Malay Bukit Merah, and Redhill is the English one. The estate and the MRT station both carry the English form.

The more famous answer is a legend. Singapura, the story goes, was once attacked by swarms of swordfish that leapt from the sea and killed people on the shore. A boy from a coastal village suggested a wall of banana-tree trunks along the beach, and the fish speared themselves in it and were trapped. The ruler, fearing the boy’s cleverness, had him killed, and his blood ran down the hill and turned the earth red. The tale is usually traced to the Malay Annals, the Sejarah Melayu; popular retellings name the boy Hang Nadim, and the People’s Association’s heritage tour places his village near Tanjong Pagar.

Both explanations can live together, as long as they are not confused. The legend is part of Singapore’s literary heritage; the laterite is what anyone digging a foundation in the area would actually have found. A third local story, about a woman named Lin Guniang whose shrine survives at Zhen Long Gong, is sometimes also linked to the red earth, according to the same tour.

1850s to 1940s: gambier, burial hills and a biscuit factory

By the 1850s Chinese cultivators were growing gambier and pepper at Redhill, the Mandarin Database records. The hills also suited burial. In 1879 a Taoist temple, Ling Shan, was built on a cemetery hill known as Leng Kee Hill; its land tenure was formalised in 1884 through a company called Chop Leng Kee, and in 1915 it was rebuilt with money from philanthropists including Tan Kah Kee, Tan Boo Liat and Low Kim Pong. Leng Kee Hill was closed for burials in 1923. By the 1950s the area still held small rubber plantations and cemeteries.

Industry arrived on the lower ground. In March 1935 the Thye Hong Biscuit and Confectionery Factory opened at the junction of Alexandra Road and Tiong Bahru Road, a 40,000-square-foot plant that cost $250,000. By the 1960s it employed more than 200 workers and produced 1,500 tonnes a month; it closed on 7 January 1982, and Thye Hong Centre now stands on the site. Residents also had their own names for parts of the district: a “garbage hill” where refuse was dumped near Alexandra Road and Henderson, and a “rice vermicelli hill” where Hokkien families dried noodles in the sun.

1955: Redhill Close and the “seven-storey houses”

The estate that defined modern Redhill went up in 1955. The Singapore Improvement Trust built a loop of uniform seven-storey slab blocks with trapezoid roofs off Jalan Bukit Merah, and residents called them chek lau chu, “seven-storey houses”. The governor, Sir Robert Black, toured the new estate in August 1955. Sources differ slightly on its size: the People’s Association gives 21 blocks with 878 flats, while Remember Singapore counts 22 blocks numbered 1 to 22.

Redhill Close was built in the same years as the Trust’s first Queenstown estates across Alexandra Road, and two decades after its pre-war estate at Tiong Bahru to the east. Three neighbourhood schools opened in the 1950s, Bukit Merah North, Bukit Merah South and Redhill School; they merged in 1986 as Bukit Merah Primary School. An informal market of hawkers grew up to serve the flats in the 1960s, and it survives as Redhill Market, known in Hokkien as ang sua pasat.

1962 to the 1980s: graves cleared and Bukit Merah Central built

After 1960 the Housing and Development Board took the estates further. In 1962 it acquired 20.3 hectares for the Lengkok Bahru estate, and graves near Ling Shan Temple were exhumed in 1963; the estate was completed in the mid-1960s. The temple itself survived. The People’s Association dates a first phase of Bukit Merah Town Centre, with a hawker centre, 968 flats and shops, to the late 1960s and a larger expansion to the late 1970s, prompted by the new Telok Blangah estates to the south; the same heritage tour gives April 1979 for the start of the town centre’s development. Our history of Telok Blangah before Telok Blangah covers that coast.

The 1980s brought the institutions. A bus interchange opened in 1981, and a swimming complex and library in 1982. Redhill’s Trust flats were offered to their tenants at subsidised prices of about $20,000 each in the early 1980s. In 1987 a $69 million complex at Bukit Merah Central became the HDB’s headquarters, which stayed there until it moved to Toa Payoh in June 2002. On 12 March 1988 Redhill MRT station opened, when trains first ran west of Outram Park; it had been announced in 1982 under the name Alexandra and renamed Redhill in June 1983.

Redhill today: Redhill Close gives way

On 3 December 2011 the HDB announced that Redhill Close would be redeveloped under its Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme, with replacement flats in towers of up to 48 storeys at Henderson Road. Most residents had moved out by 2018 and 2019, and demolition of the old blocks began in 2023. In October 2025 the HDB launched Redhill Peaks, 1,021 flats between Redhill Close and Jalan Bukit Merah. The Bukit Merah library moved to VivoCity in November 2018 despite a residents’ petition.

As of October 2026 the best surviving links to the older Redhill are Ling Shan Temple, Redhill Market and the street names. The Enabling Village, launched in 2015 as an inclusive community space, is a newer landmark. For the military road that runs along the district’s western edge, see our history of Alexandra before Alexandra.

A Redhill timeline

• 1850s: Chinese cultivators grow gambier and pepper at Redhill.
• 1879: Ling Shan Temple is built on Leng Kee Hill; it is rebuilt in 1915.
• 1923: Leng Kee Hill is closed for burials.
• March 1935: The Thye Hong biscuit factory opens at Alexandra Road and Tiong Bahru Road.
• 1955: The Singapore Improvement Trust builds Redhill Close.
• 1962 to 1963: The HDB acquires land for Lengkok Bahru and graves near Ling Shan are exhumed.
• 1981 to 1982: A bus interchange, swimming complex and library open at Bukit Merah.
• 7 January 1982: The Thye Hong factory closes.
• 1987: The HDB moves its headquarters to Bukit Merah Central.
• 12 March 1988: Redhill MRT station opens.
• 3 December 2011: Redevelopment of Redhill Close is announced.
• 2023: Demolition of the Redhill Close blocks begins.
• October 2025: The Redhill Peaks flats are launched.

Questions people ask

Is Redhill the same as Bukit Merah?

Redhill is the English translation of Bukit Merah, “red hill”. Today Bukit Merah is the wider planning area, and Redhill usually means the estate and MRT station within it.

Why is Redhill called Redhill?

After its red laterite soil, which was also used for bricks. A Malay legend offers another explanation: the blood of a boy who saved Singapura from swordfish and was then killed by the ruler stained the hill red.

What is the Redhill swordfish legend?

A boy suggested a barrier of banana-tree trunks to stop swordfish attacking the shore. The plan worked, but the ruler had him killed out of fear, and his blood is said to have reddened the hill.

When was Redhill Close built?

In 1955, by the Singapore Improvement Trust. Its seven-storey blocks were redeveloped from 2011, and demolition began in 2023.

When did Redhill MRT station open?

On 12 March 1988. It was announced in 1982 as Alexandra station and renamed Redhill in 1983.

Sources and further reading

• Promote Mandarin Council, Singaporean Mandarin Database: Redhill
• My Community: My Redhill heritage tour
• My Community: My Redhill heritage tour media release (2020)
• Remember Singapore: Redhill Close SIT estate walks into history (2023)
• Wikipedia: Redhill MRT station
• Home & Decor: Redhill Peaks BTO review (2025)

This is a historical reference to the land and its estates; the legend is retold here as a legend, not as history. Read next: What Tiong Bahru was before Tiong Bahru · What Tanjong Pagar was before Tanjong Pagar · Back to The Memory