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informed by the bus’s driver, Roger, that the upholstery fabric, a sourced 1947 cloth, cost more than the old bus itself. Arriving on the estate, the bus passes the Lodge (available to rent through the National Trust Holiday Cottages website) and curves through the profusion of Greenway’s lush landscape. Terraces levelled by Spanish Armada prisoners form the earliest garden, with the natural and spectacular woodland setting forming the backdrop to a significant and varied plant collection. The house itself dates from around 1792 and has been adapted, along with its garden, ever since. Apart from its acreage, which has been a visitor attraction for some years already, it is the house itself – and its contents – that are the main draw. Although Christie has become aesthetically synonymous, through numerous BBC productions and allstar-cast movie adaptations of her work, with the 1930s and 1940s decor style, Greenway is no art deco museum. Rather, it is a Georgian backdrop for a languid 1950s retreat, all sunshine and unpretentious comfort. Three generations of collectors have lived at Greenway, Christie and
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her second husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan; Christie’s only child Rosalind and her husband Anthony; and finally grandson Mathew Prichard, who gifted the contents: rugs, quillwork and straw-work boxes, tartanware, Chinese ceramics, papermâché, stevengraphs, bargeware, studio glass, and shell paintings. Agatha and Max had a passion for silver, and their collection shows the pursuit of a piece for every year from the mid-17th century to the ascension of Queen Victoria in 1837. The feel of the house is not of a posh, stately home with museum-quality furnishings but rather of a generous post-war life of relaxed graciousness and gentility. Christie closed the dining room wing in winter to minimise heating bills and took her meals in the flag-stoned kitchen. If you make a reservation in advance you can enjoy a table there for lunch or tea – a rare treat. Elderberry juice, anyone? So the mystery remains: why did she not write any of her best-selling novels while ensconced at Greenway? Some of her most famous murders are recognisably set here, including the boathouse where Girl Guide Marlene Tucker is found strangled (Dead Man’s Folly), the garden where artist Amyas
Crale drinks hemlock-laced beer (Five Little Pigs) and the Baghdad chest in the hall, which was the final resting place of a jealous husband in the eponymous short story mystery. After visiting and marvelling at the views down to the River Dart, at the sweeping forested slopes and verdant pathways, I understand why Agatha Christie didn’t write while staying here. It is because Greenway, the home she called “the loveliest place in the world,” is simply too beautiful for words. Visit www.greenwayferry.co.uk.