Uduwawala Ambalama

Uduwawala Ambalama is a square brick-and-mortar wayside rest at Uduwawala Junction, Kandy District, where the Katugastota-Medawala road meets the Nikathenna road, between the townships of Katugastota and Medawala. Its hipped roof, covered in semi-cylindrical clay tiles, is carried on seven cylindrical brick pillars; sources disagree on how the roof load is completed - one account adds two wooden pillars framing the doorway, another describes short connecting walls between the brick pillars instead. Inside, benches are built at different heights, following the Kandyan-period custom of seating according to caste and social rank.

No builder or patron is recorded. The ambalama is reported to date from the 16th-18th centuries, the general period during which such wayside shelters spread across the island, though this is an estimate rather than a documented date. It was declared a protected archaeological monument on 13 February 2009, under Government Gazette Notification No. 1589, listed under GN division No. 418, Uduwawala North, in the Harispattuwa Divisional Secretariat. Local accounts also describe the building as destroyed in a road collision in 2017 and rebuilt in 2021 with funding raised by nearby villagers, which would account for the altered details visible in the structure today.

The site today also functions as a local bus stop.