The expansive gardens at Agatha Christie's country estate, Greenway, have been brought to life in a mobile media trail set that takes visitors back to 1940, when the property became a home for Second World War evacuees.
Greenway, a National Trust property since 2000, has worked in partnership with the University of Exeter to create the trail on the free HistoryScapes app, which launched last year with three immersive living history trails at Trust properties around England.
The 'Voices of the garden' trail follows a fictional evacuee, Nora, inspired by the real story of the war evacuees who arrived at Agatha Christie's country estate from London. Nora, aged 10, is given a tour of the gardens by Tom, a gardener, and as she goes, she gradually uncovers Greenway's hidden voices in a fantastical adventure.
The trail was researched and written by bestselling novelist Joanna Quinn, who worked with experts at the University, the National Trust, and the Christie Archive Trust. This included drawing upon the archive of Agatha Christie's business correspondence held in the University's Special Collections.
HistoryScapes trail director Dr David Rosenthal said: "Nora's adventure is designed for both adults and children. It's a fiction, but her discoveries become yours. You'll find out about the wartime context in which it's set and what that meant for the real evacuees at Greenway, as well as for Agatha Christie, and you'll also get to know the deeper history of Greenway and its people.
"Most of all - and without giving too much away - it's a novel approach to the living heritage of the garden itself. This has been a superb collaboration with Greenway and with Joanna Quinn, whose storytelling is at the heart of the trail."
The 'Voices of the garden' trail has 10 stops, hooked to a historic map and triggered by GPS (or by tapping site points). At each stop, there is also a brief 'Discover More' audio, with commentary that provides context, along with archive images from the National Trust and Christie Archive Trust collections. From each site, users can link out to a webpage for more detail.
Greenway's head gardener Ashley Brent said: "The trail brings to life the stories of the many people who came before Agatha and created the garden she fell in love with. We're working to restore the garden to something Agatha would have recognised when she bought the property in 1938. The story this trail tells goes hand in hand with our work and helps all the pieces of the puzzle to fit together."
The Greenway project, led by Vike Martina Plock, Professor of Modern Literature and Culture, and Head of Department for English and Creative Writing, is the fourth trail on the HistoryScapes app; the others are at Saltram, Devil's Punch Bowl in Surrey Hills, and Quarry Bank. It was funded by an AHRC Impact Accelerator Account.
