Agatha Christie is irrevocably associated with her childhood home, Greenway, on the River Dart, near Torquay in Devon. Yet she spent far more of her adult life at a very different house in Wallingford, on the River Thames, near Reading, with her second husband, archaeologist, Sir Max Mallowan. They lived from 1934 till her death in 1976 at Winterbrook House, an unassuming home on the Reading Road, tucked away behind a high hedge, only yards from the main road.

The house is privately owned and not open to visitors. The closest Christie fans can get is to peer over the front gate as I did.

From Wallingford you can then make your way down a lane opposite the house into fields where a footpath beside the Wallingford branch line (which was frequently used to “store” the Royal Train when not in use) that leads down to the mainline station at Cholsey. It is perhaps a couple of miles stroll through pleasant countryside.

Here you can find the church of St Mary’s in the churchyard of which Agatha’s grave can be seen – buried with her husband Max who died two years after Christie.