USK Sketchwalk at Bedok Estate

The sports area in Bedok estate.

Map of Bedok's sports area

The last sketchwalk of 2012 was held at one of Singapore older estates, Bedok. It also marks the beginning of the third project with Epigram to pictorially record selections of Singapore's estates. The area which my group was tasked to cover comprises the sports area in the estate. This includes the swimming complex, the stadium and sports hall, the tennis courts and the community centre with its basketball court.

Bedok is a neighbourhood in the eastern part of Singapore. Bedok New Town is the fifth Housing and Development Board (HDB) new town; its development started in April 1973 and continued over some 15 years.

The Bedok Planning Area, an urban planning zone under the Urban Redevelopment Authority, encompasses the Bedok New Town itself, the low-rise private residential areas along Upper East Coast Road, and in the districts of Kembangan, Siglap and Telok Kurau, and the high-rise private condominium developments in the eastern part of Marine Parade.

"Bedok" seems to be a very old place name. In the 1604 Manuel Gomes de Erédia's map of Singapore, there is a reference to the Bedok River called sune bodo (Sungei Bedok).

Bedok is one of the early native place names in existence around the time of Sir Stamford Raffles. In the first comprehensive map of Singapore Island completed by Frankin and Jackson and reproduced in John Crawfurd's 1828 book, the place name appears on the south east coast of the island as a river, Badok S. (Sungei Bedok), around the "small red cliff", a part of present Tanah Merah.

The Malay word bedoh refers to a type of slit drum made from a large hollowed log for calling people to a mosque for prayers or to sound the alarm in the days before loudspeakers. There was a prominent mosque in the 1950s at Jalan Bilal that still used the drum about five times a day. The "h" in the word bedoh was replaced with a "k", and, as with most Malay words that end with a "k", it is pronounced with an inaudible glottal stop.

A less popular version refers to an equally uncommon Malay term of biduk, a small fishing boat like the sampan, or more likely, a dugout canoe, as the east coast was dotted with many fishing villages.

Bedok Community Centre

Shade study

Located just minutes away from Bedok MRT station and bus interchange, and opposite the Bedok Swimming Complex, the CC provides a place of fun and games for sports enthusiasts. The CC offers a wide range of sports facilities from gateball courts to sheltered basketball and badminton courts.

Besides sports, there is wireless broadband access throughout the CC.