Welcome to Greenway, Agatha Christie's holiday home here in Devon.
The house here does remain closed to the public at the moment but today
we're going to take you on a very special behind-the-scenes tour and show you some
of the objects of our collection which we don't normally get to show to our visitors.
It's all part of our celebration for the 100th anniversary of the
first of Agatha Christie's novels to be published.
And now we're in Agatha Christie's library where we're lucky enough to be able to show
you two of her very special first edition novels that we have in our collection.
And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about how we look after them.
These are two of our first edition novels which we have in our collection. 'Dead Man's Folly' which
is the novel of Agatha's which is most set at Greenway featuring the house, the boathouse, and the battery.
And 'A Pocket Full of Rye' which is both my favourite and a very special one of our collection
because it is a signed first edition. And if I open it so you can see that it is signed
'To Rosalind' who was Agatha Christie's daughter, from Agatha Christie.
Now these books are not normally on display because we keep them in a cabinet to control the temperature, light, and humidity
that these books receive, so that they can be kept in good condition for many generations to come.
Now we're in the drawing room which was a really important room in the family life of Agatha Christie.
She loved music and was actually a trained concert pianist but was too shy to perform publicly
so just used to play while she was here on holiday in front of her family.
All of the doors used to be kept open so that the sound of the music would travel throughout the house.
In this room also is where Agatha used to give readings
of all of her new novels before they were published.
So she would read the new novel in the summer and then it will be released at Christmas time.
Now that we've shown you some of the special pieces from our collection here in the house
we're going to head down to the boathouse which is most famous as the scene of the
murder in the novel 'Dead Man's Folly'.
Ashley, our Senior Gardener is going to tell us more about what makes the boathouse special.
It dates back to Tudor times and actually at low tide you can
still see the remnants of the brick Tudor slipway that was there.
The trust has spent a lot of time and money restoring this building to preserve it for generations to come,
and it's actually funded, as well as the furniture inside, by our raffle ticket sales, and also
gifts from centres and associations. So thank you to everybody who bought a raffle ticket
who made it possible for us to restore and care for this building for generations to come.
We've now come up to top garden which is an area of the garden that is pretty much the
furthest point you can get from the house. It's an area that is open to the public but not
many people make it up here, and it's the highest point in the garden. So on a hot day like today
it's a task, and I kind of understand why. But it really is worth coming up here.
It's where Agatha and previous owners played about with plants
on a south facing bank with the river estuary just behind us here,
on the South Devon coast. We stay warm and it's humid so plants thrive from all over the world.
We're now in north walled garden which is where you can find our fantastic peach house.
And peaches have been grown here for hundreds of years, and in abundance.
Agatha, we know, had peaches coming out of her ears according to diary entries.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to reopen our places. It's only thanks to our members
and supporters that we are able to continue looking after special places just like Greenway.