Greenway Estate
Greenway is the name of a country estate on the banks of the River Dart at Galmpton, near Brixham , Devon , England . The origins of the approx. 112 hectare estate with manor ( Greenway House ) and gardens go back to the 15th century. In the 20th century it became known as the summer residence of the famous English crime writer Agatha Christie (1890–1976). The property is now part of the National Trust .
history
Origin and history until the beginning of the 20th century
Greenway was first mentioned in 1493 as "Greynway" . Located on the River Dart, it was an important junction on the way to Dittisham. In the late 16th century the Gilbert family owned the estate and a Tudor mansion overlooking the estuary, Greenway Court , was built for Otho Gilbert and his wife Katharine. Around 1700 the property was acquired by the merchant and adventurer Roope Harris Roope, who laid the foundation stone for Greenway House, which was built near the original Greenway Court. From 1791 to 1832, Greenway was owned by the Elton family. Edward Elton, a merchant and MP in Parliament , bought the property for £ 9,000 , which at the time included Greenway House, three gardens and a courtyard. His son James Marwood Elton added two wings to the manor house and had the gardens redesigned according to plans by the well-known landscape architect Humphry Repton . Some of the garden buildings, the camellia garden and the old beech trees date from this period .
1832 the ownership changed hands for 15,500 pounds of Colonel Edward Caroyon, the gardens with additional flower fields, oaks and tulip tree enriched near the mansion. From 1851 to 1882 Greenway belonged to the wealthy Cornish copper magnate Harvey , who modernized the property and expanded it to include adjacent lands. He restored the lodge and the horse stables in the walled garden, which at the time was home to exotic plants such as acacia , sophora and clianthus, and added two greenhouses to Greenway . He was also the driving force behind the construction of a train connection on Greenway, which would lead to the landing site on the Dart River and offer passengers the possibility to get to distant Dartmouth by boat . The Greenway Tunnel, which runs under the country estate and now crosses the Dartmouth Steam Railway , a restored steam train, on the way from Paignton to Kingswear , also dates from this time . In 1882 Thomas Bolitho of Trewidden bought the property for 44,000 pounds, which after his death in 1919 fell to his daughter Mary and her husband Charles Williams of Caerhays. Under Bolitho and Williams, the variety of plants grew in the gardens, which were designed after the flora of Cornwall. They contained, among other things, silver trees , notro trees , cylinder cleaners and China roses , later rhododendrons , daffodils and magnolias , which attracted plant researchers like George Forrest.
Agatha Christie's residence and donation to the National Trust
After another change of ownership and the shrinking of the property to only 14.5 hectares of land, it was bought in 1938 by the English crime writer Agatha Christie (1890-1976) and her second husband, the well-known archaeologist Max Mallowan (1904-1978) for 6,000 pounds. Both spent the summers on the greenway, gardening and exercising. Mallowan documented the wildflower population in the garden, and Christie used the property as an inspiration for her detective novels, including The Unfinished Portrait (original title: Five Little Pigs , 1943) and the 1956 reunion with Mrs. Oliver (original title: Dead Man's Folly ). In the latter novel, the Belgian master detective Hercule Poirot and Christie's alter ego, Ariadne Oliver, are confronted with mysterious deaths in a murder scavenger hunt on an English country estate. The television adaptation of the same name from 1986 with Peter Ustinov as Poirot (German title Murder with distributed roles ) also used Greenway as a location.
During World War II , Greenway was requisitioned by the British Admiralty for the United States Navy . From autumn 1943 it served the preparations for the landing of the Allies in Normandy and was later converted into the officers' mess of the 10th US patrol boat flotilla. In 1959, Agatha Christie transferred the property to her only daughter from her first marriage, Rosalind Hicks (1919-2004), who lived in Greenway House from 1967 until her death. During this time, the estate was expanded to 109 hectares (270 acres) with the purchase of the nearby Lower Greenway Farm and a tree nursery was set up. In 2000, Agatha Christie's descendants donated Greenway and the Lower Greenway Farm to the National Trust . A million pounds were then raised privately for the restoration and restoration of the property. The 12 hectare gardens with their valuable stock of trees and shrubs and one of the last original moorings on the River Dart have been open to visitors since March 2002 and are also used for art exhibitions. In 2004, the BBC series Hidden Gardens dedicated a television documentary to the property. Greenway House has been open to the public since February 2009. It has been renovated and returned to its original state, as it was when Agatha Christie lived in the house.
Movie
- Ferris, Pam; Bailey, Marcus: Agatha Christie's garden: murder & mystery in Devon . [Silver Spring, Md.]: Acorn Media, 2006. (DVD, approx. 66 min.)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Christie's home to open to public on BBC News
- ↑ cf. Rees, Alun: Trust Lines up GBP 1M Bid at Christie's . In: The Express, December 7, 1999
- ↑ cf. National Trust takes up lease at historic quay . In: Western Morning News (Plymouth), March 1, 2005, News, Other, Others, p. 16
- ↑ cf. BBC gardener helps out at Greenway ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at bbc.co.uk (English)
Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′ 56 " N , 3 ° 35 ′ 18" W