Bukit Brown Wayfinder (2025) : The Scoop!

12^th October, 2025

The Bukit Brown Wayfinder by all things Bukit Brown

The Bukit Brown Wayfinder, a new self-guided trail of 32 graves with signage covering Hills 1 and 3 of Bukit Brown Cemetery at Lorong Halwa, has been launched. During the open house this afternoon, about 30 educators from secondary to tertiary institutions were invited to experience the trail with Guest-of-Honour Minister of Education Desmond Lee.

The profiles reflected along the Wayfinder trail are the collective stories of Singapore’s Chinese migrant society since the 1800s. These narratives include characters from coolies (indentured labourers) to compradors (bankers); Christmas Island labourers who mined phosphate and were employed by the Ong Sam Leong family, who were also pioneers in the mass entertainment industry with The New World amusement park; towkays (business owners) who owned twakows (bumboats) that ferried goods from the harbour to godowns along the Singapore River; pioneers in education who founded the Nanyang and Singapore Chinese Girls’ Schools; opium kings going head on with a few good men from the abolitionist camp; and the victims and heroes of World War II.

Embedded in all the tomb signage are QR codes that open up to essays about the individuals, with their stories packed with context and connections to the times lived.

As the terrain of the trail is uneven, the route markers are supplemented with online video directions to help navigate from one tomb to the next. All the tombs on the Wayfinder are visible from the road that circumvents Hills 1 and 3.

The starting point is a four-panel storyboard on the concrete platform located at Hill 1. It covers 1) Wayfinder: how to navigate the trail safely; 2) Heritage: material culture of the tombs, what they symbolise and how they relate to the rites and rituals practiced; 3) Habitat: highlights of the species of flora and fauna that are found in the cemetery; 4) History: our migrant story of the Chinese diaspora.

Learning Journey package for Schools

Bukit Brown is further enriched as an outdoor classroom with a new Learning Journey package, which will be made available to teachers to curate meaningful experiences with and for their students.

It has lesson plans, sample worksheets, as well as topics to discuss and debate with a comprehensive list for further research. The Learning Journey leverages on the physical and digital platforms of the Bukit Brown Wayfinder.

Background

Today’s Bukit Brown Wayfinder is a new iteration of the system that was first launched in November 2017. Out of the 32 tombs featured, 13 are newly added. The additions of the digital platform and a Learning Journey package for schools are catered to current trends of sharing information effectively by tapping on social media platforms.

The project has been made possible with a grant from the National Heritage Board, a donation by the Tan Ean Kiam Foundation and public donations. We are grateful to all who contributed in one way or another.

About all things Bukit Brown (atBB)

We are a volunteer community who came together in 2012 at the news of the development of Lornie Highway and have been walking the grounds since. Our projects include two exhibitions, a book on World War II at Bukit Brown and the Wayfinder in Bukit Brown. We also organise free public walks that tell the Singapore story through the colourful personalities buried at Bukit Brown.