Fort Tanjong Katong

[4] Fort Tanjong Katong was designed and built in 1879 by Henry Edward McCallum, who was the Colonial Engineer and Architect of the Singapore History Museum on Stamford Road.

[5] The fort was sitting atop a wet, low-lying coconut plantation and occupied an area of approximately two hectares, and had a small elevated battery of three 7 in (180 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns facing the sea, along with bombproof shelters.

In the late 1960s, the bastion was finally buried when land reclamation in the East Coast took place, and its memory was soon forgotten in the ensuing decades.

In 2001, the outline of the top of the bastion wall became visible during a dry spell; this prompted a Katong resident, Jack Sim, to seek out the relevant authorities to investigate its origins.

[3] Despite much public discussion and interest generated by the discovery, it was not until in 2004 that the Singapore government finally approached a team of archaeologists to excavate the forgotten fort.

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, a Member of Parliament for Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency, was the guest of honour at the event.

For nearly 10 months, more than 1,000 volunteers ranging from school students to housewives, retirees, working professionals on their off-days assisted the archaeologists on site and discovering first hand on the 125-year-old military fort.

The archaeology group is lobbying for the site to be gazetted as a National Monument, and to incorporate the fort remains to be featured as part of the park in future.