Nestled near the serene banks of the River Dart in Devon, England, lies Greenway, the beloved home and garden of the iconic mystery novelist, Agatha Christie. Her connection to the landscape was so profound that it seeped into the very essence of her storytelling. Take a delightful journey through Greenway's verdant garden paths and immerse yourself in the same mesmerising scenery that inspired some of the most captivating mysteries ever penned.
Discovering Greenway: Agetha Christie’s beloved garden
Greenway, in Devon in the south-west of England, was neither Agatha Christie’s first nor only garden, but it is the one that has become most strongly identified with the world’s bestselling crime writer. Her childhood was spent at Ashfield, a large Victorian villa in Torquay, where she was allowed to roam freely in its woods and grounds. In fact, so attached was she to the memories stored at Ashfield that she could not bear to part with it until she was fifty years old. By then she was happily married to her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, and living at Winterbrook House, Wallingford in Oxfordshire. Yet Christie retained a hopeless infatuation with Devon. In her heart nothing could replace Ashfield… until, in 1938, she got the chance to buy Greenway and its 14.5 hectares/36 acres.
Embracing Greenway: post-war reconnection
Christie could not believe that such a place could be hers and she somehow always feared it was too good to be true. In fact, her fears were well founded – Greenway was requisitioned for war use by the US Coast Guard in October 1942 and she was not able to see it again until 1945 when, despite the fact that the paths had disappeared and the fruit trees had not been pruned, she fell in love all over again with its wild beauty.
Historical roots of Greenway
Greenway stands on a promontory above a bend in the River Dart, just upstream from the naval port of Dartmouth. There was a house on the site from the sixteenth century, but the current house is Georgian, built around 1780. It was bought by Bristol merchant Edward Elton in the 1790s, and it was he who made the Camellia Garden and the entrance drive. However, it was the Carlyon family who would have the most horticultural influence on Greenway, buying in Turkey oaks and the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), which stands near the house. In 1841, Edward Carlyon inherited Tregrehan in Cornwall, and so he moved there – with, it is thought, many of the plants from Greenway. The Cornish connection continued with Richard Harvey, who bought the house in 1852 and whose cousin was restoring Caerhays Castle; he added the greenhouses to the Walled Garden and introduced exotics such as acacias, clianthus, sophoras and myrtles.
During his time, there were records of phormiums, callistemons, abutilons and Banksian roses being grown. His daughter took over the running of the estate with her husband, Charles Williams of Caerhays, who was a knowledgeable and keen plantsman. Narcissi, rhododendrons and especially magnolias were ordered from Cornish nurseries, and Greenway became, almost, the garden we see today – a fascinating mix of the exotic, the rare, the wild and the commonplace.
The Mallowan residence: privacy & sanctuary
When at Greenway, Christie and Max were known simply as ‘the Mallowans’. Christie craved privacy after the affair of her first husband, and her subsequent ‘disappearance’ had left her bruised and fearful of public attention. They loved the shelter that the mature trees and shrubs gave them from the passing river boats and day trippers on the estuary.
A garden retreat: greenway’s natural beauty
Greenway was at the centre of the family’s life after the Second World War and the family, including her grandson Mathew Prichard, spent all their summers in the garden. One of the first things they did was to ask Williams to return to identify the shrubs and trees. Neither Christie nor Max was particularly knowledgeable, but they wanted to learn and do their best for the garden. By 1949, they had set up a nursery in the old Kitchen Garden and, in the same year, Christie’s daughter, Rosalind, whose first husband had been killed in the Second World War, married Anthony Hicks. As Christie’s fame grew through the 1950s with the new media of film and television, the Hickses took on the running of Greenway.
Greenway’s literary significance
Greenway is a garden to get lost in. Even with the substantial numbers of visitors it attracts, the crowds dissipate as soon as you wander even a little way from the house. It is a garden of light and shade – of bright sunlit lawns and winding woodland paths through, in spring, plantings of primroses, wild garlic and bluebells. The paths finally lead to the edge of the promontory and the battery – a Napoleonic defence that features in several novels including the Poirot mystery, Five Little Pigs, in which Christie exactly describes the plateau overhanging the sea with the sparkling water below.
A path winds down to the boathouse – known as Raleigh’s Boathouse – although in fact it is a later construction. The link has some basis in fact, as during the Spanish Armada Sir Francis Drake captured a Spanish vessel and put the crew to work building the walls and paths of Greenway for Sir John Gilbert – half-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh. Naturally, Christie places a body in the boathouse for Poirot in Dead Man’s Folly.
The shelter belt of trees planted during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries includes countless rhododendrons, magnolias and camellias, as well as many unusual species of oak, pine, chestnut and beech. Christie enjoyed the privacy these trees gave and encouraged more planting: she and Max planted thickly – for the present, rather than the future.
Transition to national trust: preserving Christie’s legacy
Christie spent her last Christmas at Greenway in 1973. It had been a beloved house and one that went on after she had gone. Max, Rosalind and Anthony lived on there for the rest of their lives. In 2000, a new era in Greenway’s history began when it was given to the National Trust, although the family have continued to be involved in its care. The National Trust team has spent two decades assessing and cataloguing the plants and is still discovering introductions from the southern hemisphere, including Chile and Australia. These are now being given room to grow, and gardeners are thinning and opening up the vistas again, to give glimpses of the banks of the Dart.
Agatha Christie’s Devon connection
In the twenty-first century, Greenway has entered a new phase, as Christie and her family take their place among the pantheon of plant collectors, naval heroes and adventurers who have lived here. Yet, this is still very much the novelist’s garden. In the evenings, as the sun disappears and the last visitors leave, a breeze slides up the river, and even the voices of the day trippers on the boats and paddle steamers seem to recede, you would be forgiven for turning round to look over your shoulder to see if you are quite alone.
Writer in residence: Agatha Christie (1890–1976)
Born to a middle-class Torquay family in Devon, England, Agatha Miller’s marriage to her first husband Archibald Christie ended in divorce and public humiliation for Christie, although she kept his name. Her second marriage to archaeologist Max Mallowan was far happier. She often travelled with Max on digs and expeditions to the Middle East and could famously write anywhere as long as she had a typewriter and a steady table.
Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), was the debut for Hercule Poirot, one of her two great detective creations – the other being Miss Marple. In all Christie wrote sixty-six mystery novels and fifteen short story collections that have been adapted as films, stage plays and television dramas. Her works have been translated into more
than a hundred languages. Buying Greenway in 1938 was the culmination of a long-held dream to return to Devon and she set three of her novels in the house and grounds: Five Little Pigs (1943), Dead Man’s Folly (1956) and Ordeal by Innocence (1958).
This article was originally published under the title The Writer’s Garden in Issue 35 – Embrace Your Vulnerable . You can purchase previous issues and enjoy more enchanting content here.
