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St Mary Mead is a fictional village created by popular
Miss Marple
Miss Marple television adaptations the
St Mary Mead is a fictional village created by popular crime fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...
author Dame Agatha Christie.
The quaint, sleepy village was home to the renowned detective spinster Miss Marple
Miss Marple is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories. Jane Marple lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur consulting detective. Often characterized as an elderly spinster, she is one of Ch ...
. However, Christie first described a village of that name prior to Marple's introduction, in the 1928 Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot (, ) is a fictional Belgian detective created by British writer Agatha Christie. Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-running characters, appearing in 33 novels, two plays ('' Black Coffee'' and ''Alibi''), and more ...
novel ''The Mystery of the Blue Train
''The Mystery of the Blue Train'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by William Collins & Sons on 29 March 1928 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later in ...
''. In that novel, St Mary Mead is home to the book's protagonist Katherine Grey. The village was first mentioned in a Miss Marple book in 1930, when it was the setting for the first Marple novel, ''The Murder at the Vicarage
''The Murder at the Vicarage'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1930 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK editio ...
''.
Location
Miss Marple's St Mary Mead is described in ''The Murder at the Vicarage'' as being in the fictional county of Downshire, but in the later novel ''The Body in the Library
''The Body in the Library'' is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1942 and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in May of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.0 ...
'' Downshire has become Radfordshire. In the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...TV adaptation
An adaptation is a transfer of a work of art from one style, culture or medium to another.
Some common examples are:
* Film adaptation, a story from another work, adapted into a film (it may be a novel, non-fiction like journalism, autobiography, ...
of '' Nemesis'', a letter from Mr Rafiel's solicitors indicate that St Mary Mead is located in the (also fictional) county of Middleshire. The St Mary Mead of Katherine Grey is in Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
.
Miss Marple lives in Danemead Cottage, the last cottage in Old Pasture Lane. Her telephone number is "three five" on a manual exchange.
Once it has been fully established as Miss Marple's home village, St Mary Mead is supposed to be in South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...
, from London and 25 miles from Alton. It is just outside the town of Much Benham and is close to Market Basing (which appears as a name of a town in many of Agatha Christie's novels and short stories), from the fashionable seaside resort of Danemouth, and also from the coastal town of Loomouth. Using the distances from Alton and London gives a narrow possible location of a Vesica Piscis
The vesica piscis is a type of lens, a mathematical shape formed by the intersection of two disks with the same radius, intersecting in such a way that the center of each disk lies on the perimeter of the other. In Latin, "vesica piscis" litera ...
bounded by Winkfield, Bagshot, Peaslake, East Horsley, Byfleet and Windsor Great Park. This is inconsistent though with the references to the proximity of the coast as the coast is at least 25 miles from this area. Other towns said to be close by include Brackhampton, Medenham Wells, and Milchester. The neighbourhood of St Mary Mead is served by trains arriving at Paddington
Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Padd ...
railway station, indicating a location west or south-west of London. It has been suggested that Market Basing is Basingstoke and Danemouth is Bournemouth. In the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...
village of Nether Wallop
Nether Wallop is a village and civil parish in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. It is located approximately northwest of Stockbridge, and approximately southwest of Andover.
Nether Wallop is the easternmost of the three villages ...
was used as the setting for St Mary Mead. Brackhampton could be Bracknell, just north of Basingstoke.
Description
Before theSecond World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, the village itself was not particularly large. The only road of significance passing through it was the High Street. Here were the well-established purveyances of Mr Petherick, the solicitor; Mrs Jamieson, the hairdresser; Mr Thomas's basket-weavers; the 'Blue Boar' pub; Mr Footit the butcher, Mr Jim Armstrong's dairy, Mr Berks the baker, and Mr Baker's grocery shop. The little-trafficked railway station, featured in the book ''Murder at the Vicarage'', is also to be found at the very end of the High Street; although the station may have closed by the period of the novel ''4.50 from Paddington
''4.50 from Paddington'' is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in November 1957 by Collins Crime Club. This work was published in the United States at the same time as ''What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw!'', by Dodd, Mead. Th ...
'', as Mrs McGillicuddy has a taxi arranged for the from Milchester station to Miss Marple's house.''4.50 from Paddington'', chapter 1
Then, slightly further up Lansham Road, was the fine Victorian structure of Gossington Hall. Until the 1950s this was lived in by a pompous retired soldier, Colonel Arthur Bantry, and his wife Mrs Dolly Bantry, Miss Marple's best friends in the village. However, after Colonel Bantry died, Mrs Bantry sold the estate, but continued to live on in the grounds in the East Lodge. After one or two changes of ownership, the Hall was later bought by the film star Marina Gregg. One mile down Lansham Road was a very modern cottage called Chatsworth, also known as the "Period Piece" and "Mr Booker's new house". It was bought in the early 1930s by Basil Blake, a member of the art department at Lemville film studios. It was also inhabited by Basil's wife, Dinah Lee, an actress.
At the other end of Lansham Road, a small lane called Old Pasture Lane broke away from the main street. Nestled in this lane were three Queen Anne or Georgian houses, which belonged to three spinsters. The first house belonged to the long-nosed, gushing and excitable Miss Caroline Wetherby. The second was Miss Amanda Hartnell, a proud, decent woman with a deep voice. The last cottage was called Danemead Cottage and belonged to Miss Jane Marple, the famous spinster who solved countless cases between 1930 and 1976. The Post Office, and the dressmaker's shop belonging to Mrs Politt, are located in front of the lane.
The centre of the village was the Vicarage, a very grand Victorian structure at the end of the Lane. The Vicarage was home to the Vicar, Leonard Clement, his pretty young wife, Griselda, with their nephew, Dennis, and later with their two sons, Leonard and David.
Near the gardens of the Vicarage was a back lane which led to a small cottage called Little Gates. Until 1930, it was inhabited by an Anglo-Indian colonel who moved away and briefly rented it out to Mrs Lestrange.
Beyond the Vicarage were two more houses. The first was the residence of the village GP, Doctor Gerard Haydock. He continued to live on in the village beyond 1960. The other cottage was much larger than Dr Haydock's and belonged to Mrs Martha Price-Ridley, a rich and dictatorial widow, and the most vicious gossip of all the old ladies in the village. There was also a large estate, Old Hall, belonging to the despised local magistrate, Colonel Lucius Protheroe. He was murdered in 1930 in Mr Clement's study in the Vicarage. After his death, the house was turned into a block of flats, to the great disapproval of the villagers. The flats housed Mrs Carmichael, a rich and eccentric old lady who was bullied by her maid, the Larkins, two sisters by the name of Skinner, one of whom was a supposed hypochondriac, and a young married couple. A robbery was later committed by the Skinner sisters.
Finally, just beyond the home of the dreaded Price-Ridley (as she is known by other villagers) was a small stream, leading to the fields of Farmer Giles. However, the Second World War took its toll on the village, and soon after the war Farmer Giles's fields were bought and tarmacked over; and a new housing estate was built upon it. This was referred to as 'The Development' by the villagers who survived the war. A large hospital was also built nearby, staffed by many doctors and nurses. As well as this, there were some very large hotels and three film studios: Lenville, Elstree and Hellingforth.
References