Yeah Baby & Opps!

This Alexandra brick thingy is getting more and more interesting.

Thank you very much for the emails that came.

Wombat sent me 2 emails about those Alexandra Bricks :

Just to add on to the use of bricks made by the old Alexandra brick factory, the original Alexandra Hospital used them too. I know cos I saw the bricks in one of their tunnels beneath the hosp building and they bear the same name. Yes, AH is indeed rich in history and if walls could talk, they will tell you great tales of yester-years. We shld rally to save the bldg fm the bull dozers when the govt no longer has use of it as a hosp building.

And another :

Sadly, the tunnels are not opened to the public. It was a very special arrangement to view the tunnels. Very awesome! There were rows of what looks like bunks made of a lower brick wall, wide enuf for one person to lie down. I supposed the bunks were constructed for patients in case of an air raid. AH was formerly the British Military Hosp, the largest in Asia in fact and built to cater to the British troops during the colonial period.

The air in the tunnel was cold and musty but the walk thru the tunnels was truly an unforgettable experience. You even have to crouch real low to get thru some parts of the tunnel. The tunnels were blocked after a short dist I think were for safety reasons. Few know abt the tunnels as the current mgt does not want ppl to rmbr its tragic past for fear of scaring the patients away. There was a massacre incident in the hosp during WW2. Damn e tyrannical Japanese! But look at the restored hosp now... it's splendid!

Sadly I did not take pics. You can read more abt AH's history & the tunnels in a history book commemorating the hosp's 75th anniv, I think. Rumor has it that the tunnels used to link all the way to Labrador Park and even to Sentosa!

Heard the Alexandra bricks were made in a brick factory nearby in Brickworks. Whet your appetite for more on AH? Perhaps you want to post a new link all abt AH.

Wombat, indeed you have arouse my curiosity about AH. My radar will be tuned on to AH and I will jump at any opportunity to get more information about this historic place.


I also discovered that Pinto also put up a post about this Alexandra Brick at The Pasir Panjang Heritage blog. That posting gave me a little more insight into the history of the former Alexandra Brick Work.

Here are some more pictures to fill in the information gaps :

From on the Map, Alexandra Brickwork should be standing where the PSA building is standing now.

This was how the Alexandra Brickwork could have looked like :

Alexandra Brickworks by Ng Eng Teng (nationality: Singaporean).
Year: 1959. Medium: Oil on board. Size: 41 x 50.5cm.

The owner of the exposed brick wall "text/sms" me to tell that there were some JBW bricks amongst the Alexandra bricks.

See pictures :

Pictures provided by THE OWNER

I googled to find out more about the JBW or Jurong Brick Works and I was disappointed to find out that Jurong Brick Work had been demolished in 2005.
See Link here : Singapore Then and Now

Pictures by REDSTONE

I think I will go back to that empty flat to get those Jurong Bricks below the washing machine before someone throws them away.

Pardon my ignorance when I joked about the possibility of a Jurong Brick Wall in the Tiong Bahru Estate.

Truly I did not know what nonsense I was sprouting in my last post.