Winterbrook House is a Grade II listed five bedroom Queen Anne house (mid 18th century). It is located in the hamlet of Winterbrook near Wallingford. Agatha Christie and Max Mallowan purchased the house in late 1934 and it later became one of their favourite houses. She and Max spent more years living there than at any other residence of theirs.
Agatha and Winterbrook House[]
Winterbrook House, described by Agatha Christie as "Max's house", just as for her it would always be Ashfield.[1] After immediately after purchasing the house in 1934 the couple had to leave for Syria for an archaeological excavation and they did not see the house for another nine months. While they were in Syria, Agatha Christie's daughter Rosalind came to help. She was enlisted by Max to make drawings of the painted pots they discovered on the dig, which later were reproduced in a book about the dig in Tell Brak, Syria. A thorough account of the work in Syria was detailed in Agatha Christie's book Come, Tell Me How You Live
Agatha Christie decorated and developed the property in line with her hobby of maintaining houses. A fellow member of the Syrian expedition, architect and friend Louis Osman built for Christie a covered squash court. This was later converted as a separate house known as "Old Court". In 1985 this sturcture was upgraded and extended into a separate dwelling.[2][3]
Agatha and Max maintained Winterbrook for weekend breaks during the 1930s. During World War II, the squash court was used to store some furniture after their house at 58 Sheffield Terrace was bombed. The first part of Death Comes as the End was written during a break at Winterbrook in 1943.[4] After the war, Agatha and Max began to spend more time at Winterbrook and most of the books in her later years were written there.
Agatha Christie died in 1976 at Winterbrook House; the next year Max married Barbara Parker, who had served as his epigraphist at Nimrud and as secretary of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, where Max also served as director from 1947 to 1961. That same year, 1977, his autobiography (Mallowan's Memoirs) was published. It gives a selective account of his life, chiefly his childhood, education, marriage, and career. He does say in it how Agatha Christie died, peacefully and gently, leaving him now with a feeling of emptiness after 45 years of a wonderful marriage. Max Mallowan also died at Winterbrook in 1978.
The graves of Bingo and Treacle, Christie's pet Manchester Terriers, are found in the garden of Winterbrook House.[5]
There is strong evidence that the house where Agatha Christie lived, Winterbrook House in the actual town of Wallingford, is the model for Danemead, which is Miss Marple's house in the village of St. Mary Mead.
The town of Wallingford celebrates its Agatha Christie connections with "The Agatha Christie Trail". The 6-mile route takes one past Winterbrook House but the house itself remains in private ownership.
References[]
- ↑ Agatha Christie, An Autobiography (London: HarperCollins, 2010), 418, ebook edition.
- ↑ "Historic riverside estate belonged to crime writer," Henley Standard, 4 February 2019. Accessed 10 Jun 2021. URL
- ↑ This link leads to a downloadable PDF sales brochure from Savills with details and history of Old Court.
- ↑ Janet Morgan, Agatha Christie: A Biography (London: HarperCollins, 2017), 162, ebook edition.
- ↑ Laura Thompson, Agatha Christie, A Mysterious Life (London: Headline, 2007), Note 10 of chapter "English Murder".