How Bukit Timah Works | Why Four Streets Remember the Cheong Family

Did you know that four connected streets near Beauty World are, in effect, a family album written onto a map? You can walk between Cheong Chin Nam Road, Chun Tin Road, Yuk Tong Avenue and Tham Soong Avenue without realising that their names preserve generations of one family’s history.

The streets are familiar to diners, shoppers and people leaving Beauty World MRT station. Yet their origin is not simply a story about restaurants. It involves a pioneering dentist, property development, rubber plantations and a donation that supported local education.

The quick answer: According to Singapore’s National Heritage Board (NHB), these roads commemorate members of the Cheong family, who owned and developed land in Bukit Timah. The eating-house identity of Cheong Chin Nam Road came much later. Looking at the two histories together helps explain how personal names become neighbourhood identity.

Featured image: Cheong Chin Nam Road dining street in 2026. Streetfront businesses may change; the road-name history does not depend on today’s tenant mix.

Quick guide: Who was Cheong Chun Tin? · Why are four different roads connected to the same family? · How did private land development affect a public neighbourhood? · How did Cheong Chin Nam Road become a food street? · What changed after Beauty World MRT opened? · How can you read the area on foot? · What does this story tell us about Bukit Timah?

1. Who was Cheong Chun Tin?

Cheong Chun Tin, the family patriarch, was Singapore’s first certified Chinese practitioner of dentistry. Born in Hong Kong and trained in San Francisco, he established a dental practice on South Bridge Road in 1869.

After his death in 1898, his sons Cheong Chin Nam and Cheong Chin Heng continued the practice under the name Cheong Brothers. The family’s activities later extended beyond dentistry into property development and rubber plantations.

Here is the interesting part: the name of a modern suburban street can preserve an earlier profession that had nothing directly to do with today’s businesses along that street. Road names hold layers, not a single meaning.

2. Why are four different roads connected to the same family?

NHB identifies Chun Tin Road and Cheong Chin Nam Road as names associated with the family’s development of land around Upper Bukit Timah Road. Their connecting roads, Yuk Tong Avenue and Tham Soong Avenue, are named after two of Cheong Chin Nam’s wives.

These connections are not a reason to assume every building in the area was owned by the Cheongs or that all four roads were created on exactly the same date. They are evidence of a family’s presence in an evolving residential district.

Cheong Chin Nam died in 1924. NHB records that Yuk Tong and Tham Soong died in 1952 and 1955 respectively. Street names preserve personal associations long after people’s homes and landholdings change.

3. How did private land development affect a public neighbourhood?

A landowner does more than hold a property title when roads, homes and services begin to appear. As residential districts develop, their street patterns shape where residents walk, how shops receive supplies and which routes connect to schools and transport.

The Cheong family also supported education: NHB records the donation of land in 1925 for Tuan Cheng Public School, a predecessor associated with today’s Shuqun Secondary School. This illustrates how private wealth and community initiatives sometimes affected access to local institutions.

An important caution: school names and campuses can change over many decades, so the historical donation is not proof that a present-day school still stands at that exact original location.

4. How did Cheong Chin Nam Road become a food street?

Although the names reach back to earlier family history, NHB says the street became particularly well known for dining from the 1990s. Its restaurants came to serve different cuisines, including Malay, Indian, Chinese, Thai and Western food.

Nearby Chun Tin Road also contributes to the area’s eating and shopping character. Residents and visitors can combine a meal with errands around the older shopping centres or a train journey via Beauty World MRT.

Why can one road develop a strong dining identity? Restaurants draw diners, who attract other businesses and more diners. Over time, a place becomes familiar as a destination. That does not guarantee every stall survives or that every cuisine remains represented in 2026, but it helps explain how a commercial cluster develops.

5. What changed after Beauty World MRT opened?

Beauty World MRT began serving passengers with Downtown Line Stage 2 in December 2015. Rail access increased the ways residents and visitors could reach the district without travelling solely by road.

Still, the dining strip and the Cheong family street names were established well before the station opened. The accurate sequence is: older landholding and road names, developing residences and commerce, a growing dining identity, then a newer rail connection.

To understand urban development, order matters. If we reverse the timeline, we could mistakenly say the MRT created a street that had already become significant for other reasons.

6. How can you read the area on foot?

Use public pavements, respect residential privacy and avoid treating occupied private buildings as heritage exhibits. If you are travelling to a specific restaurant, check its current hours and location first.

A simple family exercise is to ask a child to identify the oldest thing the street name refers to and the newest piece of infrastructure nearby. That is how neighbourhood observation becomes a history lesson.

Begin at Beauty World MRT: identify a safe, marked crossing before visiting the food street.
Find the four names: Cheong Chin Nam Road, Chun Tin Road, Yuk Tong Avenue and Tham Soong Avenue.
Compare functions: which stretches are primarily eateries, homes, businesses or access routes?
Look for layers: note older façades alongside modern station entrances and redevelopment.
Check the NHB trail: the WWII Legacy Trail includes these streets as part of a broader historical walk.

7. What does this story tell us about Bukit Timah?

The Cheong family story is more than an exercise in recognising famous names. It shows the connection between work, investment, education, migration and place-making.

Everyday Bukit Timah contains similar overlaps. A food street can have a professional and family history; a road can remember someone who lived long before the train line; an educational institution may have roots in a donation made generations earlier.

Did you know a ten-minute walk could contain that much history? The answer is to read place names as clues and then test the clues against reliable records.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Cheong Chin Nam?

He was a son of pioneering dentist Cheong Chun Tin and part of the Cheong family that owned and developed land in Bukit Timah.

Why are Yuk Tong Avenue and Tham Soong Avenue named that way?

NHB explains that the avenues commemorate two of Cheong Chin Nam’s wives.

When did Cheong Chin Nam Road become known for restaurants?

NHB places the development of its famous dining strip from the 1990s onward.

Are these streets part of an official heritage trail?

Yes. NHB includes Cheong Chin Nam Road, Chun Tin Road, Yuk Tong Avenue and Tham Soong Avenue in its Bukit Timah WWII Legacy Trail.

References and further reading

Official records and dated sources distinguish historical facts from future plans. Check the relevant authority for changes to opening arrangements and infrastructure timelines.

More in the How Bukit Timah Works series

For related local learning, see How English works in Bukit Timah.