His name surely doesn't mean much to you. But if you are a connoisseur of Agatha Christie's work, you may have gone there fictionally by going through the lines of The Ten Little Negroes (renamed They Were Ten in 2020) or Murder in the Sun. The plot of these two major novels takes place on the island of Burgh, located in the county of Devon in the south-east of England. A region dear to the "Queen of Crime" since she was born there and lived there for a large part of her life.
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This "island hotel" has just been put up for sale by its current owner, Giles Fuchs, who acquired it in 2018. To acquire this territory of 8 hectares, it will cost at least 15 million pounds sterling (17.25 million euros), according to the real estate agency Knight Frank quoted by the British press.
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An Art Deco hotel at the dawn of a renaissance
Built in 1929, the Burgh Island Hotel has just undergone a major renovation. OLIVIER ROQUES ROGERY / Le Figaro Magazine
Located opposite the village of Bigbury-on-Sea, Burgh Island is accessible on foot or by car at low tide, or by tyred sea tractor at high tide. If there is a pub (The Pilchard Inn) and some houses, its emblematic place is indeed its hotel. Built in 1929 in the Art Deco style, it has 25 rooms and suites, a helipad and a tennis court. In December 2022, the current owner obtained a building permit for the first major renovation and extension since 1934, a project estimated at 11.5 million euros.
Agatha Christie's work is inseparable from her many travels around the world. On January 20, 1922, the novelist and her husband left Southampton for a world tour that lasted nearly ten months. Le Figaro Magazine reproduced it a century later and tells it in a summer series that takes you to Istanbul, Canada, Hawaii and South Africa.
Read the dossierAgatha Christie's world tour
