Ahimsa, Cheltenham

In 1935 Marie Beuzeville Byles purchased 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres) of land on the outskirts of Cheltenham. A few years later she designed and built a small one-bedroom house. Perched on a large rock and built of unpainted fibro, oiled timber, random rubble and with a roof glazed terracotta the structure melds well with its bushland setting. Except for a vegetable garden near the house, the remainder of the site was left in its native state.^[1]

Marie Byles shared with Walter Burley Griffin and his business partner and fellow architect, Eric Nicholls the objective of integrating structures with the natural landscape and vegetation. Although there is no documented record to prove that Griffin's work influenced her, it seems highly likely that she was favorably impressed by the houses he designed for her friends and sought to incorporate some of their qualities into Ahimsa.^[1]

Marie Byles was not an architect and, not surprisingly, her work as a designer is less accomplished than Griffin's. Some specific differences are that he preferred flat roofs while her house has a more conventional terracotta pitched roof; Griffin experimented with prefabricated building materials where as Marie used fibro (even in the 1930s this was a very conventional material); but they shared the goal of building small scale, understated and low cost houses which fitted unobtrusively into the Australian bush.^[1]

Born in England in 1900, Byles studied law at The University of Sydney graduating in 1924 to become the first woman in NSW to practice as a solicitor. She was a remarkable woman who was passionately involved in preserving wilderness areas. She was a keen mountaineer and travelled to Norway, China, Canada and New Zealand in search of unclimbed peaks. In 1938 she led an all women team in an attempt to scale a 6,100-metre (20,000 ft) peak, Mount Sansate in Western China. The expedition failed due to adverse weather conditions. In Australia her determined, active nature led her to become an early lobbyist for what we now know as national parks.^[1]

Byles was one of the early members of The Sydney Bushwalker's Club and was responsible for drawing the attention of the NSW Lands Department to the wilderness area around Maitland Bay on the central coast north of Sydney. She was appointed Trustee of Bouddi National Park and organised working bees amongst the bushwalkers to maintain the area.^[1]

The Beecroft-Cheltenham Civic Trust was established by her as a "non-progress association" which worked for the closure of roads in the area and the planting of native trees and shrubs. She worked with the Bradley sisters (Joan and Eileen) to rid the bush of weeds around her property, and practiced organic gardening techniques all her life. She always slept outside on an open verandah, never drove a car, and walked everywhere, usually with a rucksack.

In 1941 while on a bushwalk, where one of the members was taken ill, Byles shouldered his pack, his carriers and her own, and in consequence her feet were permanently damaged. From that time onwards she could manage short bushwalks only, and mountain climbing became impossible.^[1] Always interested in eastern religions, in particular the ideas of Gandhi, her disability gave her more time to research and write. In the late 1940s she took up meditation and later traveled to India and Burma to undergo instruction. In the 1950s Byles built a hut in her garden called the Hut of Happy Omen, which she made available to meditation groups. By this time she had adopted the most ascetic form of South East Asian Buddhism.^[1]

The name Ahimsa is derived from Gandhi's teachings and means peace or non-violence.^[1]

One night in 1966, while sleeping on her open verandah Byles was physically assaulted and sustained serious injuries including a fractured skull. She declined to charge her assailant. After a period of convalescence she returned to live alone on the estate still sleeping out in the open air. Miss Byles gave up her legal practice in 1970, four years after the attack.^[1]

In 1970 Miss Byles gave the property to the National Trust of Australia, remaining in residence as Honorary Curator. Concerned that the one-bedroom house might be too small for her successor, she developed a plan for an addition comprising a one room detached pavilion.^[1]

Marie Byles died at Ahimsa on 21 November 1979.^[2][1]

Ahimsa has an area of 1.348 hectares (3.33 acres) and is contiguous with a much larger area of bushland, Pennant Hills Park, to the north.^[3] The vegetation is described as dry sclerophyll (hard leafed) bushland on Sydney sandstone and is typical of the flora associated with the Northern Hills District of Sydney.^[1]

The northwest, northeast and part of the southeast boundaries are delimited by unmade road reserves, Malton Road (part) and Lyne Road (also known as Cobram Road). It is located on a small ridge, formerly and unofficially called Native Rose Ridge, on the inside of a sharp curve in a creek draining the Beecroft Cheltenham area. This creek subsequently joins Devlins Creek. The upper parts of Ahimsa are relatively flat but the groundslopes off in a series of small Hawkesbury Sandstone cliffs in a north by north-west direction to the fire trail and towards Pennant Hills Park. There are many flat sandstone outcrops and small cliffs.^[1]

Buildings

The buildings include Ahimsa, The Hut of Happy Omen, the toilets, which were all built before the land was sold to the Trust, Sentosa, a detached bedsitter which was approved in principle in November 1975. A carport was built onto The Hut in 1977. Ahimsa is a small one-bedroom house built of unpainted fibro, oiled timber and random rubble with a pitched roof of glazed terracotta. There is a brick fireplace in the living room and a large north-facing open verandah looking over the gully. The Hut of Happy Omen is basically an open shed built of unpainted fibro with a roof of corrugated fibro. At some time it has been extended to incorporate a kitchenette and a shower stall. Sentosa is an open plan bedsitter also constructed of fibro with a skillion roof of corrugated fibro.^[1]

Marie Byles' design principles are best expressed in this quotation from her: 'No Painting whatever anywhere - Any woodwork to be treated with linseed raw oil (saves unkeep): External walls are to be fibro; Corrugated (sic) fibro (long experience has shown fiber to be lasting, with no upkeep).'^[1]

Paths were made by volunteers and Marie Byles' bushwalking friends.^[4][1]

As of 27 June 2000, the physical condition was good.^[1]

An absorption trench was constructed in 1975 to contain surface run off from properties adjacent to Ahimsa as the Trust was afraid that excessive run off would encourage weed growth.^[1]

One cave has been altered and an attractive two-metre high Hawkesbury Sandstone retaining wall was constructed many years ago near the path from the northern gate.^[1]

Despite her wish that no plants foreign to it, even from other parts of Australia, should be planted several native plants not indigenous to Ahimsa have been planted.^[1][5]