Discovering Batu Gajah.....Kellie's Castle 8th Jan 2011

Kellie's Castle is a must-visit.
JY fantasized about being a duchess fleeing from evading troops; the boys ran from room to room, dashed up staircases and pretended to be archers from the top floor, K admired the architecture and I was in awe at how superior the workmanship was back then.
Built by William Kellie Smith. Plagued by one tragedy after another, it had never seen completion.
We were contemplating the feng shui of the place. The castle was perched on a hill top with a meandering stream in front. Excellent feng shui, right?
Later, we were told that we were not looking at the front of the castle but the back.
So that changed the feng shui significantly.
An interesting fact is that the river was not in its original location but was diverted to accommodate mining activites nearby.

Four-leaf clover designs on the walls.

The holes in the wall were meant for the scaffolding.
The castle was a mishmash of Italian towers, Roman pillars, Moghul windows and doors, Moorish designs.
Very fusion.
No cement was used in the construction. Instead a mixture of sand, chalk and duck egg whites and shells were used. Same technology was used for Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat and the Great Wall of China.

Ceiling of daughter's room.

Note the beautifully painted cornice.

The timber used for the door and window frames were in mint condition. Beautiful solid chengal wood.

K walked around and did a thorough termite inspection and said the place was free of any infestation.

Horse stable and guard house

View of lift shaft from the top floor of the tower.

This was suppose to be the first such elevator in the region.

William died of pneumonia while in Lisbon shopping his lift.

View of Kellas House from the top floor of Kellie's Castle.

William Kellie Smith's family resided in Kellas House(left) and with the birth of his son, he decided to build the much bigger Kellie's Castle(right).

Kellas House was destroyed during World War II.

Italian marble in a bathroom of Kellas House.

William's apparition was spotted walking along this corridor.

Secret staircase.

Escape routes from most of the bedrooms on the second floor led to the back of the building via such staircases.

During the construction of Kellie's Castle, a few of William's labourers fell victim to Spanish flu. Not knowing why his workers were dying, William being superstitious, was told that the Gods were not pleased and he was instructed to build a temple.

About 1km from Kellie's Castle, you will be able to see the Hindu temple that was built and an effigy of William (look for his brown suit) stands atop the temple.

Most of the information that we got on the castle was from listening in as Mr Tajudin, the curator, gave a briefing to the crew of 8TV.

He told us about the mistakenly sealed underground passageway that led from the tower to the river and of the paranormal activities that were proven by live footage.

Fai's sketch of Kellie's Castle. Check out the ghostly figures....Woooooo!

The camera on tripod on the rooftop is for capturing footage of ghosts.

On the left is the "Bear Tree".

Sights around the tin dredge 8th Jan 2011

Rubber mat rollers.
Four of these were displayed along the path leading to the tin dredge.
Looks like a sugarcane juice extractor to me and a giant pasta machine to JY.

The crank still works and is much better condition than my ice kacang machine at home that requires herculean effort to get shaved ice.


These cows were bought from a farm to be fattened up for sale. Each costs between RM1000-2000 depending on size or weight. This holding pen is located next to the tin dredge museum between Batu Gajah and Tanjong Tualang Road.

Apart from the grazing meadow, the cattle and buffaloes were fed with cut corn stalks in pellet form with the help of this contraption.


Located at the back of the tin dredge was a duck farm.
Lots of quacking can be heard as we made our way around the tin dredge.
The ducks were waddling down to the pond for their late morning swim.


Setawar plant.
I used to pluck out the leaves and place them between the pages of my textbooks and wait for the little roots and shoots that would emerge along the indents of the leaves.
I had no idea this plant was medicinal.

Discovering Batu Gajah ...tin dredge 8 January 2011

Kapal Korek. Photos do not do justice to this enormous beastly machine.

If only my Geography and History teacher had taken me here...

Batu Gajah was supposed to be a short stopover on our way to Ipoh for my mother-in-law's 68th birthday. The last fully restored tin dredge in Malaysia was our destination. However we ended up spending 5 hours in Batu Gajah.

The drive along the Batu Gajah -Tualang stretch was beautiful in the early morning. We left KL at 6am, caught the rising sun along the North-South highway and was greeted by the surreal, mist covered peaks of the Titiwangsa mountain range.

The Kapok tree.

We use kapok pillows in PD, bought by the roadside.

Kapok trees were in full bloom in Batu Gajah!

The trees were filled with tufts of white cotton fluff busting out from their seed pods.

The tin dredge was huge, rusty and partially sunken. Walking into the tin dredge we had to cross a rusty metal bridge over the deep dark waters. The words "drowning" and "sinking" flashed repeatedly in my mind. It didn't help that on board the pontoon there were many manholes that were uncovered and looking down into one, we felt dizzy when we saw that it was an endless drop into the deep, dark abyss.

There wasn't any signs or information boards, so we didn't know what we were looking at. I should have done more research on the tin dredge.

As we walked in within the tin dredge, Fai noticed that the dredge was lopsided. The left side was partially submerged. This can be seen evidently from the outside.

The surface of the floor was rusty and cracked. We felt it was safer to distribute our weight and not stand in a group.

I couldn't shake off the foreboding I felt and the thought of the 4500 tonne behemoth of steel floating on a 80feet deep pond compounded that feeling.

In retrospect, I should have gone up to the upper decks with JY.

She attempted to but came back down when she saw how dark it was up there.

Darn those vampire series!

The 2.5 tonne buckets were massive.


The buckets on a chain looked like a roller coaster ride. It was difficult to imagine how such a heavy piece of machinery could have worked.

Fai's sketch of the tin dredge