Budleigh Past and Present

Agatha Christie (far left): a regular visitor to Budleigh   There’s a dash of Agatha Christie about the place, was journalist Tom Dyckhoff’s verdict on Budleigh Salterton in a review of the town published in the Guardian some ten years ago. ‘You feel, at any moment, as if Hercule himself might pop out of The Feathers following a gin fizz.’ Perhaps that was why Budleigh was chosen as a location for the filming of crime mysteries like ‘Nemesis’ and ‘Sleeping Murder’ in the BBC's ‘Miss Marple’ series. But did you know and did the TV people know that the so-called ‘Queen of Crime’ was a regular visitor to the town? The above photo was kindly sent to me by a member of the Budleigh - Past and Present Facebook group. It shows her in the garden of ‘High Knowle’ on Dark Lane, Little Knowle, on the outskirts of Budleigh Salterton, with, on her left, her friends John Reeder Makeig-Jones CBE and his wife Agnes. My so...