• The Mandarin term “红山” is a paraphrase of the Malay name “Bukit Merah”, which means “red hill”.
• Redhill was originally a hilly area and came to be named after its red laterite soil. As the soil was found to be very suitable for making bricks, there were many brick factories here.
• There is also a famous Malay legend regarding the origin of Redhill. According to legend, the coast of Singapore was once attacked by swordfish, and a boy who lived on the hill suggested to the Sultan to build a fence of banana trunks that could block the swordfish attacks. This strategy proved successful and the boy became very popular. However, the Sultan was worried that his position would be threatened by the boy and sent his men to kill the boy. The boy’s blood flowed down the hill and dyed the earth red. Thus, this area became known as Bukit Merah, or Redhill.
• In the 1850s, some Chinese cultivators first grew gambier and pepper at Redhill. However, the gambier production process and its demand for firewood resulted in more than 20 years of deforestation and the eventual abandonment of the gambier plantations. In the 1950s, there were small-scale rubber plantations and cemeteries in the Redhill area.
• In 1955, the Singapore Improvement Trust built 21 blocks of sevenstorey flats at Redhill Close, giving the area its colloquial name “七楼” (“seven storeys”).
• The Government built more flats in Redhill in the 1960s and subsequently developed Bukit Merah Central in the late 1970s, establishing the headquarters of the Housing & Development Board there.

The migrant workers moved into their temporary residences in Redhill on 6 April while the grassroots workers carried out various tasks, including coordinating with HDB staff to ensure the health and welfare of the migrant workers. (Lianhe Zaobao, 18/5/2020)

Different parts of Redhill have their own colloquial names. For example, as Alexandra Road and the Henderson area were former grounds for garbage dumping and incineration, the area was known as “粪扫埔” (or alternatively “垃圾坡”, which means “garbage hill”), which originated from the Hokkien dialect term poon sor po. In addition, as the area of the present Bukit Merah Central and bus interchange was where the Hokkiens dried rice vermicelli (bee hoon) in the sun,
it was colloquially known as “米粉坡” (meaning “rice vermicelli hill”), which originated from the Hokkien bee hoon po.