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Penang's Rubber Rollers |
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This is part of a series of pages on relics of Penang's rubber industrial heritage. The others are:
This page covers the machines which we have discovered during our 2022 / 2023 / 2024 / 2025 visits. Click one of these links for earlier additions to the original list - 2018/2019 and 2019/2020. I wrote on 13th March 2020 that "the total for that season was 81 making 194 in all". The 2022/2023 visits officially brought 5 additions (1 is on another page) but on a serious examination of my list I found this actually made 197! We did find a pair in December 2023 which came as something of a surprise to us as we hike past them regularly. We finally got to 200 in January 2024, but this 'Gang of 3' were nothing like as obvious when Yuehong spotted them above Titi Kerawang, You can read about them below, the similar two on the left were a very special pair!
Off the Hakka Centre Road (28th February 2025) Rereading a hiking report from January 2018, I noticed a mention of a pair of rollers which I had failed to consolidate into this section. It took two visits to find them as I had misinterpreted it the first time. This is another pair of Cherry Tree Manufacturing Company machines, sadly one of them has lost its top curved bit: (Numbers 211 and 212 for the record)
Off the Bukit Elvira Road (25th February 2025) We have seen several rollers with the name Tan Ewe Aik (of Singapore), a company which seems to have had a long run in the business as they kept changing their trade mark, we have also seen them using a ship and an airplane. This pair are near the Bukit Elvira road past the Christian Cemeteries outside Balik Pulau not far from another similar pair but these carry a pair of anchors. (Numbers 209 and 210 for the record)
Above Sungai Pinang (17th December 2022) This pair were found on the roadside on Bukit Kecil west of the village. It seems maybe that we had not passed this way in recent years. Yuehong tells me the inscription is unique (so far) and the Nan Chun (South Spring) trading company operated out of what is now part of Beach Street in Penang. Apart from the inscription they look pretty standard.
Balik Pulau, just outside the east wall of the Santarama Buddhist complex. (11th January 2023) These are a modern pair, a design that carries no information as to origin. We have seen an increasing number of others similar to these for examples click here or click here.
Sungai Ara Valley (South) In December 2023, we found this pair at the site of the former '541' rest stop on the south side of the Sungai Ara Valley. Later, on reading one of my hiking posts I realised that we had actually seen them at a nearby house in February 2018 but they had vanished by the time we started recording such things a year later. They are less than wonderful and seem to be of the modern 'Chinese' variety like the other pair at the other house below. I have been hovering just short of the 200 mark since just before the pandemic and a detailed analysis indicates these were #198 and #199.
Above Titi Kerawang Despite near daily hikes, no new discoveries were made until late January 2024 when we were coming down a large orchard above Titi Kerawang and had reached a point where it appeared there might be no easy way out with secondary jungle ahead. I was completely focused on avoiding a lengthy climb back to the top when Yuehong called me back, "Roller!". My lovely wife had not only discovered #200, #201 and #202 but two of them were Penang's version of the Holy Grail, examples from the Cherry Tree Manufacturing Company of Blackburn, only the second time that we had seen a matching pair. The third was 'only' another plain roller from Jelutong in Penang (click here for our original example). They were among the remains of an old hut at the end of a branch from a T-junction. After which we turned around and tried the other branch which fortunately led to the top of another orchard.
Down we went and this time it was my turn to find another (mixed) pair, #203 and #204..
On the left is another 'Cherry Tree' type (the spring below has rusted off) which bears what I am sure is an agent's name 'Boon Tean & Co Importers'. On the right is another example from Leong Chuan in Singapore. Afterwards, we quickly found our way out and back to one of the access roads.
After the excitement of reaching 200 with a pair of very old rollers, a week later we stumbled on a pair of 'modern' Chinese rollers from Dairen (Dalian) above Sungai Ara. I think we have only seen an example of this plate once before (rollers 205 and 206).
The above pair took me to 206 in early February 2024. The next pair in March 2024 are technically preserved and appear on another page. While my target of 200 has now been achieved, hopefully a few more will appear here in due course... It would be nice to reach 250, but given the slow pace of new discoveries, maybe it would be wiser to start hunting some other kind of relic. |
