All’s well in Aston

Villagers in Aston Settlement like to meet at this stall daily. —Photos: FOONG PEK YEE/The Star

IT USED to be that 100 people from seven to eight families staying in a two storey shophouse was nothing out of the ordinary in Kampar.

That was how it used to be in the 1880s when the Chinese arrived in droves to work in the tin mines in the area.

There was just not enough living space. All they asked was a roof over their heads.

In 1935, British colonial officer Arthur Vincent Aston spearheaded a plan to alleviate the crowding in Kampar.

“The already cramped and unhygienic living environment in the town was at its saturation point,” Aston Settlement Head Soh Seng Nge said about how the village got an English name.

Aston Settlement’s roads like 1st Avenue can be traced to the history of the village.

Three years later in 1938, Aston Settlement located on the fringes of Kampar, was ready to resettle the dwellers. It is now listed among the 460 plus New Villages nationwide.

Soh said the planned settlement has four straight roads and 194 houses. The roads are called avenues, adding a very English element to the village.

Soh said the 30ft by 40ft wooden houses with zinc roofing in the village became the homes of residents who were mostly tin miners, rubber tappers, construction workers and traders in the old days.

The demographic profile of the village evolved over time, and the collapse of the tin mining industry in the 1980s marked an abrupt change in the socio-economic landscape.

Soh believes security in the village is good.

The lack of jobs saw many youngsters moving to bigger cities in search of a living.

“The villagers are mostly elderly people and petty traders these days,” he added.

Soh said the security in the village is good and the flooding it used to experience has been resolved.

He said Aston Settlement’s strategic location near Kampar makes it convenient for the villagers.

The furniture in this house speaks volumes of the age of the settlement set up in 1938.