Greenway

Greenway was the holiday home of Agatha Christie, a late 18th-century Georgian house above the River Dart where she and her family spent summers and Christmases in the 1950s. In 1944 the US Coastguard requisitioned the house ahead of D-Day, leaving a painted frieze in the library. The rooms are presented as the family left them, full of ceramics, silver, first editions and finds from the Middle Eastern digs of her husband Max Mallowan. The woodland garden drops past a restored peach house and fernery to the Battery with its cannon and the Boathouse, scene of the crime in Dead Man's Folly. A 1-mile Boathouse walk loops the garden, and three trails link Greenway with Galmpton. Dogs on leads are welcome everywhere but the house. Reviewers like the garden paths and the accessible Barn Cafe. Tips from regulars: drivers must book a parking space in advance and stays are limited to three hours; the ferry from Dartmouth or Dittisham avoids the narrow lanes, though the path up from the quay is steep; and lockers by the entrance take your bags.