Adisham Bungalow
A grand English country house near Haputale built in 1931, now home to a Benedictine monastery. Its gardens, library and preserved rooms open to visitors, surrounded by pine and tea.
In the misty hills near Haputale, a Tudor and Jacobean style mansion rises incongruously among the surrounding tea plantations, its stone walls and gabled roofline looking considerably more like the English countryside than tropical Sri Lanka. Built between 1927 and 1931, Adisham Bungalow, also known as Adisham Hall, was the personal residence of Sir Thomas Lister Villiers, an English aristocrat born in 1869 at Adisham Rectory in Kent, grandson of Lord John Russell, who twice served as British prime minister. Villiers arrived in Ceylon as a trainee planter before eventually rising to become chairman of George Steuart & Co, one of the island's oldest trading and estate agency companies, a position he held from 1928 until his retirement in 1948, and it was during his time as chairman that he began building his dream country residence, choosing a site at Haputale surrounded by forest known as Tangamalai, meaning Golden Hills.
The architectural design deliberately echoed Leeds Castle in Kent, stone walls, tall windows and gabled roofs designed to evoke a genuine English country manor rather than a colonial planter's bungalow, and inside, of the mansion's fifteen wooden rooms, nine were built specifically as lockable spaces for Villiers's antique collections, alongside a library housing rare manuscripts, antique globes and maps, and a music room complete with an antique piano, details that speak to the genuinely comfortable, cultured life Villiers built for himself in these remote highlands.
Following Villiers's death in 1959, the property changed hands several times before the Sylvestro Benedictine Congregation, a Roman Catholic monastic order, took over in 1961, converting the mansion into a functioning monastery that continues operating today, offering limited accommodation for guests seeking Christian spiritual retreat amid genuinely spectacular mountain views. The chapel remains an active space for prayer, its wooden altar and stained glass windows filtering soft light across rows of wooden benches, and visitors touring the grounds on weekends and public holidays can also sample the monastery's own homemade jams, crafted from fruit grown right on the estate, a small, tangible link between the property's colonial planter past and its present quiet, contemplative purpose.
At a glance
- Entry fee: Around LKR 100
- Opening hours: 9:30am to 4:30pm, weekends and public holidays only
- Time needed: 1 to 1.5 hours
- Best time: A clear weekend morning
Getting there
About 3km from Haputale town toward Adisham. Take a tuk-tuk to the gate, then walk in along the pine avenue.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does it cost to visit Adisham Bungalow?
- Around LKR 100.
- What are the opening hours at Adisham Bungalow?
- 9:30am to 4:30pm, weekends and public holidays only.
- How long should I spend at Adisham Bungalow?
- Plan for 1 to 1.5 hours.
- When is the best time to visit Adisham Bungalow?
- A clear weekend morning.
- How do I get to Adisham Bungalow?
- About 3km from Haputale town toward Adisham. Take a tuk-tuk to the gate, then walk in along the pine avenue.