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Agatha Christie’s mansion might not be haunted but a group of 100 tourists were spooked to be trapped there. It was as if the house wanted some company. For several hours, the mystery lovers had free use of the grounds. It brought the English countryside estate back to a life it hasn’t seen for decades.
Trapped in mystery mansion
Considering they were all mystery fans to start with, it wasn’t hard for more than 100 tourists to feel like they were trapped in Agatha Christie’s mansion like the plot of a novel. “And Then There Were None” was prominent on everyone’s mind. The estate is named “Greenway” and a storm knocked some of its green into the way.
The series of events, the tourists relate, “could have been lifted straight out of the pages of one of Christie’s mystery novels.” It all started when a fallen tree blocked the only road accessing the property.
Visitor Caroline Heaven alerted a local news crew that her group was “trapped in the grounds of Christie’s former holiday home.” The historic site is managed by Britain’s National Trust. They soon “put a message on its website, announcing that a large tree had fallen on the single-track road leading into Greenway.”
More than 100 people became trapped for several hours in mystery writer Agatha Christie’s former home in the English countryside https://t.co/sRP0h3E5QC
— CNN (@CNN) July 15, 2023
One of their officials noted they were aware what was going on at the mansion. There were “visitors, staff and volunteers still at Greenway unable to leave.”
The Trust also noted that they were “doing everything” to “ensure their comfort whilst they waited.” That meant getting an extra-bonus tour of the mansion and free snacks.
“The stranded tourists kept themselves busy, drinking cups of tea in the houses’ tearoom and playing rounds of croquet on the lawn.” The visitors might not have been thrilled to be stuck there but the house seemed to be glad to have them around.
The staff were great
Ms. Heaven and the rest of the tour group made the best of it. They arrived around 11:30 a.m. and weren’t expecting the weather to turn it into an all day affair.
She had terrific things to say about the staff of the historic mansion. “They are doing a great job, they are giving us free teas and things. It’s a bit bleak,” she remarked, referring to the weather.
The mystery writer herself “was known to while away the hours on Greenway’s lawns, playing clock golf and croquet and entertaining guests with snippets from her latest mystery novels.” The mansion itself seemed to miss those days and trapped the tourists there just so they could play.
Update: There was a brief power cut and it is now exactly 100 people.https://t.co/6LlcsZ4hhl
— Shiv Ramdas Official Boye Mafia Spokesman (@nameshiv) July 14, 2023
None of them could help drawing references from Christie’s novels and cracking jokes. Merrily counting 99…98…97 and chuckling, as they explored “the estate’s walled gardens and famous boathouse which serves as the scene of the crime in Christie’s novel, ‘Dead Man’s Folly.‘”
One of Agatha’s most iconic tales is one where “ten strangers are inexplicably invited to a remote mansion off the Devon coast.” Greenway sits in Devon. “As members of the party are mysteriously killed off, the group soon realizes there is a killer in their midst.” They laughed about the need to “implement a buddy system immediately.”
Once local crews cleared the obstruction, they didn’t want to leave. That fallen tree wasn’t the only damage the building sustained, so it’s going to be closed a while for repairs.
