A new age in England presents a young Agatha Christie with a romantic connection.
Agatha Meets Her Christie
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Take a literary tour of England and the locations featured in Agatha Christie's books.
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay on England's south coast. In a career spanning over half a century, the prolific crime writer was inspired by the landscapes and character of her home country, much of which featured in her novels. This heart-warming documentary takes viewers on a literary tour of England - focusing on the most interesting locations featured in some of her best-known books.
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay on England's south coast. In a career spanning over half a century, the prolific crime writer was inspired by the landscapes and character of her home country, much of which featured in her novels. This heart-warming documentary takes viewers on a literary tour of England - focusing on the most interesting locations featured in some of her best-known books.
A new age in England presents a young Agatha Christie with a romantic connection.
Agatha Meets Her Christie
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Photos from Agatha Christie's England
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The reception area at Brown's Hotel, Agatha's favorite hotel in Mayfair, London.
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A typewriter at Upper House, one of Agatha's residences in the country.
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The grounds in which Agatha liked to walk.
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The stairs at Upper House.
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The bay at Torquay where Agatha used to swim.
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Author Janet Morgan
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Simon Calder in an old steam train carriage.
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Andrew Petit, the vicar at Wallingford, one of the final towns Agatha lived in.
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About the Film
There is no more quintessentially English writer than Agatha Christie. Through her sensational murder mysteries, she created a literary universe that captured England's spirit like no one before or since. But the magical worlds where she set her stories are in fact drawn from real places.
Retracing Agatha's footsteps across England, we visit Beacon Cove, the exact location where a young Agatha swam with her young nephew when he narrowly escaped drowning - the memory of which would be reprised in her 1939 novel "And Then There Were None" when a young nanny lets the boy in her charge drown.
In Ealing, we hear how the young Agatha witnessed her great aunt, affectionately known as Granny, devour local gossip and the news, including the fascination with the day's gruesome murder trials, the fingerprints of which would be all over Agatha's fictional world of Miss Marple and the village of St. Mary’s Mead in 1930's "The Murder at the Vicarage." And we explore how WWI Agatha qualified as a pharmacist, introducing her to poisons, but also Belgian refugees flooded Torquay, inspiration for another of Agatha's greatest creations, Hercule Poirot.
With access to both her family and those who lived with her and knew her best, to her private homes combined with visits to Ugbrook House, where she met first husband Archie; Abney Hall, the original inspiration for Agatha’s inimitable country house murder template; Brown’s Hotel, immortalised in 1965's "At Bertram’s Hotel"; her country retreat Greenway, the boat house of which plays host to a scene in "Dead Man’s Folly," we hear how Agatha drew on her surroundings as a magpie would, as both the people, and the places she encounter, found themselves immortalized in her extraordinary canon of work.
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