Greenway House

VISITING WRITERS: My journey to Agatha Christie’s Greenway House

VISITING WRITERS My journey to Agatha Christies Greenway House4

I went through a mystery novel phase in college, digesting vast quantities of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Clearly, memorable central characters make novels, especially in the mystery genre. Long after I had forgotten plot lines, I could conjure up Miss Marple, with her deceptively demure smile and crone’s understanding of human nature; Hercule Poirot’s meticulous intellect and waxed mustache; Phillip Marlowe and Sam Spade’s hardboiled cynicism and dangling cigarettes.

Another adage about writing is to write what you know—your experiences, domiciles and temperament. I’ve wondered why writers chose to write mysteries, but clearly, the plot required an agile and questioning mind. The reader is introduced to several potential suspects, including the actual culprit, giving us time to doubt and explore guilt through a maze of circumstances. So, who was Agatha Christie, behind the guise of a modest old lady and a Belgian detective?

Over a bank holiday, I made an excursion to the western counties of England. I set aside a half-day to visit the home of Agatha Christie in Devon. What would I learn about her there? On the long train ride from London, I reread a Miss Marple story, The Murder at the Vicarage. Was Agatha Christie describing herself when she wrote “Miss Marple is a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner—Miss Weatherby is a mixture of vinegar and gush. Of the two Miss Marple is much more dangerous”?

Greenway House


Christie was born in 1890, in a Devon seaside town, Torquay, famed as a picturesque resort and convalescence retreat by Victorians. Like Miss Marple, Christie was most comfortable in rural England. For more than 40 years, she wrote and resided with her second husband at Greenway House during the summer season and holidays.

Agatha Christie 2

Located on a promontory above the River Dart in Devon, the property is accessed by a vintage bus, painted hunter green, that ferried me along a secluded lane that dead-ended at a path rising to a white Georgian mansion, built in the 18th century. A bit severe to my taste, while others might call it stately.

I was lucky enough to visit on an exquisite day in late spring. I could see why she called this place the loveliest of all. The grounds, around 100 acres, combined wild spaces with a classic English garden. I found a dreamy woodland, a walled garden and a fernery. I drifted down the hillside towards the Dart estuary and the Boathouse, the scene of the crime in Christie’s book Dead Man’s Folly.

In the winter, the river is blanketed in a ghostly mist, which figured in her stories. Her rocky garden along the river became the locale in Five Little Pigs where artist Amyas Crale was poisoned. Tucked away at the end of a woodland path, it’s easy to see how this secluded spot inspired the writer.

Max Mallowan, her second husband, was an archaeologist and the couple were great collectors of antiquities. She used her own experiences at archaeological digs to provide the setting for Murder in Mesopotamia. When the family donated Greenway to a charity called the National Trust, the house came with her furniture, wardrobe, library and collection of artifacts. The Trust left everything exactly as it was up to her death in 1976.

Agathat Christie desk

Roving through the house, it seemed part museum and part jumble. Most memorable were her Steinway, which I was encouraged to play—and did—and her writing desk with her typewriter, blotter and books she wanted close at hand.

In the library, one wall was covered in a folk mural, painted by a soldier during the Second World War, when the house was requisitioned by U.S. troops during the preparations for the D-Day landings. But Agatha loved it and decided that it should stay. It includes copies of her first edition books (well over 60 novels, not including her other works).

My favourite story about Christie’s life occurred when her first marriage collapsed in 1926. Her husband told her he was fooling around. Traumatized by the revelation, Christie disappeared—thousands searched for her. She was discovered by authorities several days later at a hotel, registered under the name of her husband’s mistress!

I never knew until I toured her house that we shared a love of nature, as well as an interest in archaeology and classical music played on a magnificent piano. I like to think that under the seemingly proper exterior of Mrs. Mallowan (as she was called by the locals), there was a wildly imaginative, soulful writer who found both reflection and joy overlooking the river Dart.

After my visit to Greenway House, I was reminded of Joseph Eastwood’s astute observation about fiction writers like Agatha: “Only a writer holds conversations between people that don’t exist. We don’t talk to ourselves, rather we talk to the people that we created out of nothing.”

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image 1 Jason Ballard, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons 2 Joop van Bilsen / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons 3 all other photos courtesy of the author

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