Agatha Christie's Greenway, House and Gardens

Dame Agatha Christie is on the top left.

Heard of Agatha Christie?  No?  Still fumbling along in a first grade primer?  She’s only the most popular novelist of all time, her books having sold over four billion copies.  The Bible and Shakespeare have out sold her, but no one else.

Greenway, in Devon, England, overlooking the picturesque Dart River and city of Dartmouth, was Christie’s holiday home, purchased in 1938, her ‘getaway,” to relax with family, away from public pressures. It’s now part of the National Trust, including the extensive grounds and gardens.

To get there from Dartmouth is an adventure in itself, much like one of Dame Agatha’s stories.  First you catch a ferry across the River Dart.  Then you hop on an ancient train, pulled by an historic steam engine.  

Some twenty minutes later, you get off (alight, as Agatha would say) at a stop that appears to be nowhere.  A couple of small, low buildings to protect travelers from any sudden shower, an iron fence and a sign mark the landing.  Steps lead steeply through the trees to a tarmac road that winds along the side of a hill.  Ten or fifteen minutes of walking and you’re at the entry to Greenway.  It’s not a bad stroll amid the verdant grasses, flowers, and huge trees rising like giants to embrace the sky.

Greenway House is white, Georgian, boxy and large, but without much character aside from the pillared portico.  

Inside is another matter.  Agatha Christie and her husband, the archeologist Max Mallowan (1904-1978), were great collectors and the rooms are tastefully filled with every collectable knick-knack imaginable. Teapots, walking sticks, archeological momentos. Evidently, the house was not always so orderly.  The story goes that when the house, which fell to shambles sometime after Christie’s death in 1976, was restored in 2008, mountains of ‘stuff’ had to be sorted and disposed of.

The restorers did a fab job.  The rooms seem much lived in.  Homey. Normal. The perfect place for a couple, their children and grandchildren to calm themselves and wander blissfully into family life.

Yet, it couldn’t have been normal, as you and I think of it.  Such a spacious home must have required servants, even if just for the dusting and cleaning.  That wouldn’t even count routine maintenance on the structure itself.

As any homeowner knows, houses and grounds are not inexpensive in their upkeep.  Besides the 18^th Century house itself and surrounding buildings, the garden and grounds must take a massive amount of money and work.  No wonder it was best for the remaining family members to turn it over to the National Trust.

Each room in the house has a different personality, from the very plain bedroom, where you will hear a recording of Agatha’s own voice discussing her methods of writing, to the small ‘fax room,” where Max worked, to the map and archeology room, to the expansive library, whose walls hold a decoration dating from World War II, when American forces used the house to plan for D-Day. A young Coast Guard artist left a panoramic graphic of his ship’s journey from America to England.  Dame Agatha left it, believing it to be part of an historic undertaking.

A tea-totaler, Dame Agatha drank double-cream with her meals.

Novelist.  I routinely get a blank stare when I say the word.  So, just to clear things up:  Novels are books of fiction, fanciful tales written by a novelist, and meant to entertain.  They come in many forms:  Romances, Histories, Sci-Fi, Mysteries, and while they may be based on truth, or contain historically accurate settings and characters, the stories are completely constructed in the author’s imagination.  They are not true stories.

In Agatha’s Christie’s case, she wrote 66 novels under her own name, as well as several using a pseudo name, Mary Westmacott. She also penned plays and short stories.  The Mousetrap still runs in London’s West End. It’s the longest running play in history.

Several of Christie’s novels use all or parts of Greenway as their setting:  Five Little Pigs (1942), Towards Zero (1944), and Dead Man’s Folly (1956).

Her two most famous characters?  Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple.   Even an illiterate couch potato knows those two names.  The last of the Hercule Poirot stories was just on TV, starring David Suchet, who played the part for twenty-five years.

Something you may not know.  She wrote none of her books at Greenway.  However, she often sat in the living room (also called the library) and read completed novels to her family.  I’m sure they tired of this.  grumbled and complained, no doubt.  Families are like that.  It is said her husband sometimes closed his eyes and nodded off.

As a writer, I enjoy seeing firsthand how other writers lived.  You somehow getting a feel for the kind of person they were.  I had not read an Agatha Christie mystery in ages, but I quickly grabbed a copy of Dead Man’s Folly.  Dame Agatha certainly lived an upper crust sort of life, yet her concerns seemed very down to earth, almost elegantly normal, and Greenway, with its comfortable couches (which you’re allowed to sit on), the subdued colors, and the room decorations, make it a place where anyone could spend a holiday.

Agatha in her twenties.

Travel is like that, isn’t it?  Allows you to effortlessly expand your horizons, pick up threads of interest, and encourages you to explore possibilities.  Greenway does it all.  When I hopped on that old train and listened to the whistle of the steam engine, I stepped into the time and tone of a Christie novel.  Getting off at the Greenway train stop continued the plot, tangled and enhanced room-by-room, acre-by-acre.  This was Agatha Christie country and I loved it.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/greenway/facilities-and-access/

The Royal Castle Hotel: History and Mystery!

A grand old lady, her stark white walls and gold lettering gleaming in the sun, The Royal Castle Hotel, rests placidly by the waterside, overlooking the River Dart and a bay filled with boats and ships.  She has graced the historic harbor since the 17^th Century, or maybe before if you count previous inns that have occupied the space, including one Sir Francis Drake stayed in.

You remember Drake.  Elizabethan Admiral (a pirate in Spanish eyes), commander of the victorious British Fleet against the Spanish Armada, and circumnavigator of the globe.

We didn’t stay at the hotel, but even if you choose more modest accommodations, it’s essential to at least sit in the hotel’s Galleon Bar, sip a local DoomBar Ale, and wander around inside to see the grandeur of an old coach inn.  Modest in some ways, yet splendidly opulent in richly woven rugs, overstuffed seating, polished brass fittings, and weathered leather.

light ale on the left, cider in the middle, Doom Ale on the right

Lots of local frequent the Galleon Bar

The Galleon Bar, it’s said, features timbers gleaned from the wrecks of the Spanish Armada.  That was 1688, so the timing is right enough and the timbers do indeed look both ancient and notched from previous use.

In England, history never dies, it just lingers on, cut and polished, and applied to other purposes.  History this hotel has in quantity.  Mary and William stayed here after arriving from the Netherlands to claim the English throne.  Charles II and his female admirers also spent some time.  Edward VII (1841-1910), movie stars such as Cary Grant, and the author Agatha Christie are others of note.  The latter changed the name of the hotel to Royal George in her novel Ordeal by Innocence.

Charles II owns a special place in English history.  His father, Charles I lost a war and lost his head.  Charles II also lost a war, but after Oliver Cromwell’s death and the restoration of the monarchy, he mounted the throne.

In The Royal Castle, you not only have history served on a platter, but if you’re lucky, in the dark of the evening, you may even hear the whinny of horses or the cracking of a whip as a phantom stagecoach picks up equally phantom passengers by the front door.  Hey, you can’t call yourself a true English hotel without a ghost or two!

Didn’t stay in any of the 25 hotel rooms, but I hear they are individually decorated in sumptuous antiques, some featuring four posters and modernized by the addition of Jacuzzis.

Top of the stairs looking down on the sitting area.  Note the bells on the top left.

There’s a seafood restaurant on the ground floor and another dining room above that looks out over the harbor.  But, whether you stay or eat or both, do not miss the chance to trip up the winding staircase that looks down on a sitting area.  On the top floor is an old library featuring leather-bound volumes of hotel registers. 

On the wall above the sitting area, look for the 20 bells, in the long ago used by guests to call for assistance from the staff.

We camped in The Galleon bar for some time, ordering plowman’s lunches (cheese, salad, and bread), while we quaffed an ale or two and watched the locals.

The Royal Castle Hotel is a friendly, welcoming place.  You could stay awhile, soaking in the history of the weapons and nautical gear on the walls.  You may be sitting where royalty sat.  It’s a comfortable feeling and you may stay awhile.  We did.

Dartmouth: Pilgrims, Castles, and War

Dartmouth, right on the dot!

A wonderful, sleepy harbor.

Let’s take a trip to Dartmouth.  I don’t mean the Ivy League, Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.  I mean the city:  Dartmouth, England.  But, there’s a connection.  The 2^nd Earl of Dartmouth gave the college its name.

You can get tangled in connections between the United States and England. American school kids are like only, like, mostly, like familiar with, like, you know, three:  Pilgrims, Colonies, Revolutionary War.  A diet of thin gruel and pond water, with a hefty shot of 220 Volts for wrong answers might buck those little heathens up.

But, back to the peaceful city in southern England:  Dartmouth.  Strange name.   Dart is the name of the river flowing through the town.  Why dart?  Oh, you clever beast, trying to catch me.  Dart is an old Celtic word meaning river lined with oak trees.  One small word can’t cover all that?  Try sauté, meaning ‘lightly fry in a pan with a little bit of butter.’  By the way, the banks of the Dart are still lined with native oak.  Since the town was built at the mouth of the River Dart…Voilá!  Dartmouth.

There’s even a direct connection to the Pilgrims, who put into Dartmouth for repairs to the Speedwell, the sister ship to the Mayflower.

See, compared to your beer swilling buddies, you’re now on a par with Nobel Prize winners.  But, wait, there’s more.

The Royal Castle Hotel sits in the midst of the port, a regal building, with a regal history.  Opened in 1639, Sir Francis Drake, Queen Victoria, and a host of other dignitaries have had stays, among them Cary Grant, and Dame Agatha Christe, who used the setting in a couple of her mysteries.

 A ghost carriage regularly pulls up in front of the hotel, to the clatter of horses’ hooves.  The heavy wooden beams inside came from ships in the Spanish Armada.  Have a drink in the Galleon Bar, also made from the wreck of a Spanish Man-o-War. 

Inside the Royal

The Galleon Bar

Across the street is the Dartmouth Museum, a nautical treasure trove that encourages you to open drawers and piddle with things. King Charles II was entertained here in a room still known as The King’s Room.  The entry stairs twist around a ship’s mast.

Outside the Dartmouth Museum

At the mouth of the harbor, Dartmouth Castle has guarded the port since the late 14^th Century.  Took part in the English Revolution and served as a fortification in both World Wars. 

But, there’s far more to Dartmouth than a few architectural relics, although after several pints of fine English ale, I found them absolutely fascinating, right up until I was asked to leave.

Dartmouth Castle

More recent history also stalks Dartmouth.  Devon was the center of preparations for D-Day.  Ever hear of Slapton Sands, Exercise Tiger and the full-scale D-Day rehearsal?  May 1944.  As Exercise Tiger was in full swing, landing craft were spotted by German E-boats, fast, wooden hulled attack boats.  946 American troops lost their lives.  Because of the secrecy surrounding D-Day, little was reported.

A German E-Boat

A 

Enough painful memories.  In Dartmouth, what can you do for fun?  Take a ride down the Dart on a 1920’s steam driven paddleboat.  See the oaks along the banks, watch oystermen ply their ancient trade.  Catch a glimpse of the Britannia Royal Naval College.  The college is the last and only Naval College left in England, as sadly the British Navy, protector of the realm for a thousand years, has been allowed to wither.  The college is active and only open to visitors on certain days.

Nearby is Greenway, the holiday home of Agatha Christie, owned by the National Trust and open to tourists.

Now to the real business of a day, food and drink.  Plenty of pubs.  Head back to The Royal Castle Hotel’s Galleon Bar, or tread the dainty cobblestone streets for shopping and sipping.  Plenty of seafood, including some of the most fabulous fish and chips in all of England.

Ah, the beer!  But, I’ve written so extensively about the glories of hand-pulled pints that you may believe all I think about is beer.  Not so.  But, my wife won’t let me write about English women.

A local brew in the Galleon Bar

And anyway, this is about Dartmouth.  Spend a day or a week, or come for the summer and finish that novel.  The real glory of Dartmouth is what I would label a fascinating tranquility.  And now that you know what the hell Dart means, you’re practically a native.

Oystermen check their beds

Scones with Jam and Devon clotted cream