Labour of love gets new life

So close to Colombo and yet seemingly set so far away in a different time and place. That’s the feeling that creeps up on you when you turn off the busy High Level Road at Meepe junction to meander through pleasantly pastoral landscapes and ascend the slopes of sunlit rubber to finally emerge on a cleared hillside. And before you perched high up there, like an eagle on its eyrie, lofty and alone, is Ayr bungalow. The drive twists and turns and suddenly you have a full view of its arched, ivy-covered façade.

For J.F. Arley Elford, the planter whose name is carved on its walls, the building of this solid house was literally a ‘labour of love’. The story is impossibly romantic: how the planter brought his bride home to Ayr Estate only to find her totally disappointed by his humble dwelling. She was apparently from a wealthy family and not prepared to live in less than ideal conditions as the estate bungalow must have been at that time so returned to her native Scotland.

It then became Elford’s dream to build a house worthy of her and so began the construction of this bungalow. The site was chosen with great care—a vantage point on the estate which afforded sweeping views of the surrounding countryside. The design is said to be modelled on the lines of a Scottish castle.

What stands out is the stone (kalugal). Old timers on the estate relate stories of how elephants were used to haul the massive stones up the hillside. They stand today as testament to the determination and vision of this lonely man.

Yet all his labour was in vain for when the house was built, he found that she tired of waiting, had gone off with another. The story goes that worse was to follow. Elford’s employers, not in approval of his ambitious construction dismissed him from his job.
All that remains of his labour is an engraved stone set on the side of the house with the words ‘This bungalow was built entirely of estate materials and labour by J.F. Arley Elford, superintendent, M.A. W. Jayasekera, conductor. June 1922’.There are no records of what happened to Elford, whether he gave up planting or remarried.

With the passage of years, Ayr now has a new lease of life thanks to the management of its owning company Pussellawa Plantations who decided that it was too unique a property to be forgotten. Thanks to a concerted on-going refurbishment, the spacious, airy bungalow has been restored to a fair extent and is now open to visitors looking for a plantation holiday of quiet walks and solitude.

Getting Ayr back to shape after years of neglect and haphazard renovation was no easy task, says Ruwan Seneviratne, Group Manager of Pussellawa Plantations, explaining what an effort it was to strip the stone floors and walls of the red paint that had been plastered on it. “We used sulphuric acid, water and a high pressure hose to strip the walls,” he says while bungalow keeper H.L. Nandasiri affirms that it was indeed a hard labour.

Today, shorn of later extensions, the bungalow is taking in guests with its three large bedrooms and children’s room, all equipped with air-conditioning, hot water and other facilities to ensure a comfortable stay. Each room has its own sprawling balcony affording views of the surrounding countryside.

Tastefully if rather sparsely furnished anew, it still has a few of the pieces of furniture from colonial days like an old roll top desk and sideboard. The bedrooms are large and airy but the final cosy touches of vases filled with flowers, knick-knacks on the mantelpiece and pictures on the walls usually associated with estate bungalows are not in evidence.

Srian Wijeyesakere, Group Co-ordinator of Pussellawa Plantations remembers the days after Elford when Ayr was still a showpiece. He has a long connection with the estate having grown up there with his father M.U. Wijeyesakere being superintendent for over two decades. Ayr was then a company estate with one H.D. Fernando being the major shareholder. He too recalls the story of Elford’s valiant labour, adding that he is believed to have taken photographs of the house his wife lived in, in Scotland and then built Ayr on the same lines. The double stone walls were filled with sea sand to keep the house cool, he recounts.

Mr. Wijeyesakere also recollects how Ayr bungalow was used as the setting for a British film in 1952 titled The Planter’s Wife starring big names such as Jack Hawkins and Claudette Colbert.

The story was set on a rubber plantation in Malaya where Colbert and her husband lived with their small son. Neglected by her husband who is totally absorbed by his work, she decides to take their son to school in England and not return. But her plans go awry when bandits kill one of their neighbours and the plantation becomes the scene of a murderous game of cat and mouse.

“The cast was staying at the Galle Face Hotel and would drive up by jeep bringing the best of food,” Mr. Wijeyesakere says, smiling at the recollection of his boyish enthusiasm for the goodies, the cast would liberally share. A highlight of the film he remembers is a cobra-mongoose fight filmed at the Dehiwela Zoo.

Its building notwithstanding, Ayr’s location makes it special. Just an hour’s drive from Colombo and yet, from its windswept hilltop height (850 feet above sea level), on a clear day, the visitor can take in Adam’s Peak, at night the beacon of the Beruwela lighthouse and down in the valley, the lights of Colombo.