Maciej Olszewski/imageBROKER/Shutterstock
Greenway House and Garden above the River Dart, home of Agatha Christie, Greenway, Galmpton, Devon, England, United Kingdom, January 2023.
London CNN –
Over 100 people were stuck for several hours on Friday in Greenway, the former home of famed British crime writer Agatha Christie, in the English countryside.
In a series of events that could have stepped straight from the pages of one of Christie’s detective novels, the group of tourists were left stranded after stormy weather downed a tree and blocked the road leading to the estate in Devon, South West England.
Caroline Heaven, a tourist visiting Greenway, contacted local news agency Devon Live to break the news that about 100 tourists were trapped in the grounds of Christie’s former holiday home.
Britain’s National Trust, which manages the historic site, was quick to publish a message on its website announcing that a large tree had fallen on the single lane road leading to Greenway.
A National Trust spokesman said they knew there were “still visitors, staff and volunteers at Greenway who are unable to go,” adding that the National Trust was “doing everything possible” to offer them comfort while they waited.
The stranded tourists kept themselves occupied, sipping tea in the houses’ tea room and playing a game of croquet on the lawn, Heaven told Devon Live.
Heaven, who arrived at the home around 11:30 a.m. local time (6:30 a.m. ET) on Friday, praised the staff’s efforts to look after the tourists.
“They do a great job, they give us free tea and other things. “It’s a bit gloomy,” she remarked.
According to the National Trust website, Christie herself was known to spend the hours on the Greenway lawns, playing clock golf and croquet and entertaining guests with excerpts from her latest detective stories.
The captured tourists would also have had time to explore the property’s walled gardens and famous boathouse, which serves as a crime scene in Christie’s novel Dead Man’s Folly.
Despite the seemingly tranquil atmosphere, some social media users couldn’t help but draw a parallel to Christie’s iconic novel And Then There Were None, in which ten strangers are inexplicably invited to a secluded manor house off the Devon coast. When members of the group are mysteriously killed, the group soon realizes there is a killer in their midst.
One social media user shared a link to the Devon Live article with a tweet counting down: “99, 98, 97, 96, 94 (grisly), 93.” Another user shared the article, advising trapped tourists to “right away.” introduce a buddy system”.
In the end, however, the tourists met a less gruesome fate than the Christie’s characters: They were able to leave the property on Friday night after local emergency services managed to reopen the road.
However, those wanting a taste of Christie’s crime-fiction magic will have to wait a little longer, as the National Trust warned potential visitors in an update on Saturday that Greenway will remain closed due to “significant storm damage”.