Bidadari Cemetery

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bidadari Cemetery (Chinese: 比达达利坟场, Malay: Perkuburan Bidadari) is a defunct cemetery in Singapore. There were two sections: the Muslim section was at the base of Mount Vernon, bounded by Upper Aljunied Road, Upper Serangoon Road, and Bartley Road; the Christian section was across Upper Aljunied Road from the Muslim section, and bounded by Upper Serangoon Road as well.

Apart from being a place of remembrance, the trails inside Bidadari Cemetery used to be very popular as a running route for members of the Gurkha Contingent. Bidadari Cemetery is no longer in use, and most of the graves have been exhumed for redevelopment. Woodleigh MRT Station now occupies part of the former site.

The cemetery was a burial site of Augustine Podmore Williams, an English sailor, on whose life writer Joseph Conrad based his novel Lord Jim. Burials were not permitted after 1972, the same year that the Mount Vernon Crematorium and Columbarium was opened, which too eventually closed in 2004 due to redevelopment. The government began to exhume graves in 2001 in the Christian portion of the cemetery to build a new town, reportedly known as Bidadari New Town.

[edit] Name

The word bidadari means "fairy" and is probably derived from the Sanskrit word widyadari, which means a nymph of India's heaven or a houri of paradise. The bidadari are depicted as kindly fairies and genies that preside over the union of flowers. In the local context, the name is a reference to the beauty of the wife of Maharajah abu Bakar of Johore who had a house there. The cemetery took the name after the sultan's wife ceased to reside there. The grounds were leased to a Japanese person who built moats with typical Japanese wooden bridges and a teahouse.