Torbay's Agatha Christie Festival

Every year, Brixham, Torquay and Paignton, which collectively make up Torbay, host the week-long Agatha Christie Festival, a celebration of the famous crime-writer's life.

She was born there, spent the first sixteen years of her life there, met her first husband there, was proposed to there, spent her honeymoon there, and bought an estate with her second husband there.

Given all of that, it's hardly surprising that Christie's life there is marked out and recorded, and the places included in her works featured in events throughout the festival and on the Agatha Christie Mile, a walk through Torbay that, by a happy coincidence, happens to not only be about Agatha Christie, but is also a mile long.

It was also in Torquay that Christie acquired her thorough knowledge of poisons, which she makes use of repeatedly in her writing. This happened during the First World War, when she worked in the dispensary of a Red Cross hospital set up in Torquay's town hall; whilst there she became a qualified pharmacist.

As mentioned, the festival offers the opportunity to visit locations included in Christie's writing. Some of these are exquisite in their own right, and the reasons they were chosen to feature in her works are obvious when you see them.

You can visit Princess Gardens, from ‘The A.B.C. Murders', to spend some time wandering through this Victorian please ground. There's also Churston station on the Paignton and Dartmouth steam railway. The station features in both ‘The A.B.C. Murders' and is the basis for Nassecombe station, where Poirot arrives in ‘Dead Man's Folly'.

Kents Cavern, crafted into the fictional Hempsley Cavern in ‘The Man in the Brown Suit', is also open to the public, and the Imperial Hotel, which becomes the Hotel Majestic in ‘Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case', is still a successful business.

It's not just a tour of Christie's life and influences that the festival offers though. In fact, that is not even the greatest part of the festival, as any of these locations can be visited all year-round. What makes up the real meat of the week are the various productions and showings of all Christie's works. Films, theatre, radio plays and themed dinners are put on for sampling, which should appeal to any fan of the Queen of Murder and Mystery.

This article was written by Tom Sangers on behalf of Brixham Holiday Parks who offer English Riviera holidays.