At Home with the 'Queen of Crime'

 

At home with the ‘Queen of Crime’ features world-renowned author Agatha Christie who lived with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan in Winterbrook House, from 1934 till her death in 1976. Many of her novels were written there. The house (a private residence) lies in Winterbrook (a suburb of Wallingford, formerly in the parish of Cholsey) and is identifiable by its Oxfordshire Blue Plaque.

 

Agatha Christie shopped regularly in Wallingford but worshipped at her parish church in Cholsey, where she now lies buried with her husband in the churchyard.

Our exhibition takes you behind the scenes to her home life, featuring photographs of her at Winterbrook House and memories of local people who met her. You can read several personally handwritten letters which reveal her love of pantomimes and her gradual frustration as her health declined in her final years.

Many stories have been gathered from Wallingford and Cholsey people who knew ‘Mrs Mallowan’ – people who visited her, served her in shops, worked for her at Winterbrook House and even interviewed her.

Agatha Christie was a very private person, something Wallingford has always respected, but this exhibition opens the door just enough to give poignant and fascinating glimpses of the local life of the world’s most famous and best-selling writer, rightly dubbed ‘The Queen of Crime’.

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