In Agatha Christie’s Footsteps on the English Riviera – Travel Review

By Kevin Pilley, June 2025

Everyone on the English Riviera will tell you where to see Agatha Christie’s bust.

On Cary Green near the Grand Pavilion, as well as the new one on the harbourside plaza, you can sit beside the “Queen of Crime”.

The author of The Mousetrap and the creator of Miss Marple and Poirot is honoured with two busts in her hometown of Torquay.

Agatha Christie bust on Cary Green, Torquay

“Period costume”

Every September (13–21), the town remembers its favourite daughter with a festival. There are murder mystery evenings, plays, films, talks, walks, afternoon tea, and a period costume summer ball hosted by the exclusive 1929 Art Deco Burgh Island Hotel in Bigbury-on-Sea, where Christie wrote Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None. You can rent flapper dresses and stay in Agatha’s Beach House, the Poirot or Miss Marple suites, or those named after non-fictional guests like Noël Coward.

A unique sea tractor has been operating since the 1960s to carry guests over at high tide. The island is also home to the 14th-century Pilchard Inn and the seawater Mermaid Pool.

For two weeks, South Devon is overrun by dowdy tweeds, grey homburgs, boutonnieres, pin curls, finger waves, waxed moustaches, and dapper little bald men exercising their “little grey cells”.

Dame Agatha wrote 80 novels, 19 plays, several short story collections, and a book of poems. The Guinness Book of Records lists her as the best-selling fiction author of all time, estimating that two billion of her books have been sold in over 100 languages worldwide.

Sea tractor in operation

“Royal visitors”

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in 1890 on Barton Road, Torquay. The house was demolished in 1962. Nothing remains now but a boundary wall — and a plaque.

Torquay was then a party town and fashionable resort. It boasted more royal visitors than anywhere else in the world. Educated at home, Agatha learned to read at the age of three. Her first published piece was a poem about electric trams, which appeared in a London newspaper when she was 11.

Agatha met Lt. Archie Christie of the Royal Flying Corps at a ball at Ugbrooke House near Exeter. He suddenly asked for a divorce shortly after Agatha’s mother’s death in 1926, triggering her infamous 11-day disappearance. She was eventually found in Harrogate. They had honeymooned at the Grand Hotel, Torquay — though it lasted only one night before Archie returned to the Front.

Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, appeared in 1920.

“The name Marple came from Marple Hall in Cheshire,” said Joan, a Blue Badge guide who gives Christie walking tours. “The character was probably modelled on Agatha’s eccentric grandmother, who collected table napkins and bathroom towels. Poirot was inspired by the Belgian refugees billeted in Torquay.”

“Nearly drowned”

The “Christie Mile” begins at Torquay Town Hall, where Agatha worked for the Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.) when it was a Red Cross hospital. It was here, while working in the dispensary, that she learned about poisons. In a notebook on display is a short poem:

From Borgia’s time to present day
Their power has been proven and tried
Monkshood blue called aconite and the deadly cyanide.
Here is menace and murder and sudden death in these phials of green and blue

It was also in the dispensary that she first started writing, encouraged by her sister, Madge. Also exhibited in Torquay Museum are first editions, Joan Hickson’s shoes, and a mock-up of Poirot’s study at Whitehaven Mansions.

Joan is an experienced “Miler”. She is the pace-setter, and it is hard to keep in her slipstream. The trivia comes thick and fast. Agatha collected fluffy monkeys. Poirot appeared on a Nicaraguan postage stamp celebrating the centenary of Interpol. Writing, she once said, was “a chore”. She even hosted a “Poodle Party” where guests came dressed as dogs.

We walked down to the beach. “Beacon Cove is where Agatha nearly drowned. It was a ladies-only beach then… and the members of the yacht club behind used to study the form of the swimmers through opera glasses!”

Beacon Cove

“Looking for inspiration”

Also on the itinerary is Princess Gardens — named after Princess Louise, one of Queen Victoria’s daughters. It is mentioned in The ABC Murders. Torre Abbey, Torquay’s oldest building dating to 1196, has a Christie Memorial Room which houses her favourite armchair, her “noiseless” 1937 Remington typewriter, and her plotting notebooks. There is also a handwritten manuscript for A Caribbean Mystery.

Christie explored Devon and the South Hams countryside in her Morris Cowley car, looking for inspiration and locations. Fifteen of her books are either set in Devon or have specific connections with the county. Some are surprising — like Torquay Golf Course, where she was proposed to by Major Reggie Lucy while he was giving her a golf lesson. He is the model for Peter Maitland in Unfinished Portrait. Agatha’s father was President of Torquay Cricket Club.

You can see her baptism certificate at All Saints’ Parish Church, which will be holding a service of celebration. Churston Station was “Nassecombe” in Dead Man’s Folly. Christie donated the east window at St Mary the Virgin Church in Churston Ferrers, between Brixham and Paignton — “a happy window which children could look at with pleasure.” Kents Cavern appeared as “Hempsley Cavern” in The Man in the Brown Suit.

The area’s creeks, inlets, and coves — like Elberry — play starring roles in many books. Miss Marple’s home of St Mary Mead is a composite Devon village. Dartmouth’s Royal Castle appears as the “Royal George” in Ordeal by Innocence. Up on Dartmoor, Agatha finished the first draft of The Mysterious Affair at Styles in the Moorland Hotel at Haytor.

Christie’s holiday home on the Dart estuary

“Prolific”

My tour ended with a twilight cruise to Christie’s holiday home, “Greenway House”, on the Dart estuary near Brixham. Agatha moved there in 1938 after marrying the eminent archaeologist Max Mallowan. “I adore corpses and stiffs,” she once wrote. They travelled around the world together on digs and spent summers at Greenway until her death. It is now owned by the National Trust.

Inside, all that remains of the prolific crime writer is a gardening hat and scarf, along with her collection of shell paintings.

Lady Mallowan died on 12 January 1976 and is buried in Cholsey, Oxfordshire, near her last home in Wallingford.

But Devon was where her heart lay — and it’s where the stories that made her a legend continue to come alive.

For further information about Agatha Christie breaks and the Festival:
englishriviera.com
iacf-uk.org
burghisland.com