I am sitting on the sweeping terrace of the Imperial hotel in Torquay, England, looking out over the breathtakingly blue water of the bay, soaking up crime fiction history. This is Christie country, the place where Agatha Christie was born, and the venue for the International Agatha Christie festival every September.
The Imperial is where Miss Marple sent the traumatized Reeds for a rest cure in “Sleeping Murder”. On this very terrace, with its panoramic view, Poirot and Hastings sat with the charming Nick Buckley in “Peril At End House”, though Christie called it The Majestic and changed Torquay to St Loo. Far in the distance is Burgh Island, the setting for Christie’s bestseller “And Then There Were None” and the inspiration for “Evil Under the Sun”, which you can now buy for £15 million.
Sadly, the Imperial’s Victorian façade has been modernized, but its lobby continues to be as it was in Christie’s time. The Devon coast with its glorious beaches, cliffs and bays is called the English Riviera. It was optimistically touted as a rival to the French version back in the 19th century, soon after Napoleon made it difficult for the English to visit France. These days, with global warming, it’s a balmy 80 F, and perhaps a true rival.
The festival began in 1990, and after a pause during Covid, it is now an annual affair. Every year, about 3000 people come from as far away as Australia and Canada. They walk where Agatha walked, they swim where she swam, they visit her house, Greenway, and discuss her passions: poisons, archaeology, golf. “Tartan noir” crime writer Val McDermid even sang with her rock band “The Fun-Loving Crime Writers” this year. Kenneth Branagh’s new film adaptations of Poirot bring more fans, though the purists detest his tinkering with the originals.
Fans walk the Agatha Christie Mile, a journey that takes in her favourite haunts, from her favourite bathing cove and the pier where she went rollerskating to the hotel where she and her first husband Archie Christie had their honeymoon. Agatha Christie Mile | English Riviera | Torquay, Paignton & Brixham. Stop on the way in front of the Christie statue, where it is traditional to take a photo pretending to be murdered, as Agatha looks on indulgently. “In 2010, we hid 120 red herrings across the area, in Burgh Island, Dartmoor and Dartmouth for a treasure hunt. The prize was a trip on the Orient Express. Every last one was found,” says festival director Matt Newbury.
I begin my Christie pilgrimage with an early morning swim at Beacon Cove, the beautiful bay where Agatha bathed almost daily. There’s a photo of her with her only daughter Rosalind. The water is surprisingly warm, calm and clear. In Agatha’s day, it was a ladies only bathing bay. She was carried down to the water in a cumbersome bathing machine – like a palanquin – from which she emerged only when she was safely and modestly in the water. Meanwhile, her dad watched over her from the nearby Royal Yacht Club, while also shooing away young peeping toms who gathered with binoculars for glimpses of the ladies’ ankles.
Graham Kerr’s Agatha Christie walk is a must for fans. Kerr talks about Agatha’s early life in Torquay, shows rare photos of her as a child and young adult, and generally brings out the human side of Agatha. “Agatha was an alpha female. If she had been alive today, she would have been a Spice Girl. She was ahead of her time”, he says. To support his point, he shows a rare photograph of Agatha and Archie at their engagement. Agatha is standing up, towering over Archie, while he sits in the chair traditionally meant for the woman. “A deliberate play by Agatha to show they were equals,” says Kerr.
Kerr highlights an important point: Agatha was let down by her feckless father and brother, who frittered away the family fortune, and then deserted by her husband Archie, who left her for another woman. Therefore, says Kerr, most of her murderers were motivated by money. Men in Christie novels are generally charming but untrustworthy, women often nurturing and kind.
Greenway, Agatha’s most beloved home, is a short drive from Torquay, and well worth the visit. Agatha described it thus. “A white Georgian house of about 1780 or 90, with woods sweeping down to the Dart below, and a lot of fine shrubs and trees – the ideal house, a dream house”. At the bottom of the sprawling gardens leading to the river below is the boathouse where Marlene Tucker was killed in “Dead Man’s Folly”. The path from the house to the river and the battery played a crucial part in the poisoning of bohemian artist Amyas Crale in “Five Little Pigs.” And nearby is Churston, where Sir Carmichael Clarke was murdered in “The ABC Murders”.
Greenway itself is a magpie’s lair, stuffed with over 12,000 objects from silver and ceramics to Mesopotamian pottery, all collected by Agatha and her second husband Max Mallowan. It was donated to the National Trust by her only grandson, Matthew Prichard, and is now open to the public. Agatha’s presence is in every room. In one room, a picture of a dog locked out of the house inspired “Dumb Witness”, a tribute to Agatha’s beloved terrier, Peter. In the toilet, there is a huge mahogany seat, which she lugged all the way to Baghdad, on her frequent archaeological digs with Max. The trips inspired a slew of novels: “Death In Mesopotamia”, “They came to Baghdad”, “Appointment with Death” “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile”.
In the bedroom, there is a huge double bed for Agatha and a small camp bed for Max. Max apparently found the camp bed he used in the war more comfortable, but it’s telling nonetheless. The library has a collection of their eclectic reading from Confucius and Hindu philosophy to Tennyson and Shakespeare, which so frequently appeared in her works. And in the dining room is Agatha’s favorite cream jug. As a teetotaler, she never drank alcohol, and instead drank Devonshire cream after every meal.
Nearby Torre Abbey, a former monastery dating from the early 12th century, is worth visiting too. Its “Potent Poisons” garden displays the plants featured in Agatha’s novels, including the sources for cyanide, morphine and ricin. The abbey’s Spanish Barn – which housed Spanish prisoners in the Armada – hosts talks by top crime writers Ruth Ware and Sophie Hannah, but also by superfans with obsessions of their own. “Anyone can get involved,” says Newbury of the festival’s democratic nature. “We had an American fan who did a tour on Christie in America. Another did a tour on Christie’s cocktails, and one keen golf player organized a golfing murder mystery.”
I wound up my pilgrimage in Torquay Museum, which has the only Agatha Christie gallery in the UK. There’s not much to see there, but what there is, is worth a quick trip. There’s the silver topped walking stick used by actor David Suchet in his role as Poirot in the much-loved TV series, and the Art Deco furniture from his apartment. There’s Agatha’s original and illegible script for her first book “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”. But fans may be most interested in where it all began for Agatha, with her stint as a volunteer nurse in a temporary hospital during the First World War, and her subsequent fascination with poisons. (Over half the characters in her novels were poisoned).
She wrote a poem which is displayed in the gallery. Only a few years later, she would write “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”, introducing Poirot, and killing off her first victim with strychnine.
Here is sleep and solace and soothing of pain – courage and vigor new:
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To sudden death forever, then.
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The International Agatha Christie Festival is held in Torquay, Devon from September 8 to 18th every year. International Agatha Christie Festival | Home (iacf-uk.org)
