Agatha Christie at Clewer Mill House

Published in Windlesora 38 (2024)

© WLHG

One hundred years after a census is taken, the data becomes publicly available. The whereabouts of various famous people are always of interest, and when the 1921 census became accessible, The Times picked up on the fact that Agatha Christie had been a visitor at Clewer Mill House (in Mill Lane) on census night. She had listed her occupation as Novelist; this was very early in her career – her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, had been published only the previous year.

She was one of six visitors of Ernest Albert Belcher, whose occupation was listed as Assistant Manager of the British Empire Exhibition. The transcript of this entry lists him as ‘Belden’ which reminds us that the computerisation of records can also introduce another opportunity for error, where the transcriber misreads the original entry. A check of the electoral register confirms that the owner of Mill House at that time was indeed Ernest Albert Belcher.

Agatha Christie’s connection with Belcher is well documented in her autobiography, where she describes how Belcher had been a master at her husband, Archie’s school in Clifton, and had remained a family friend. Agatha recounts how Belcher had manufactured for himself the somewhat bizarre job of Controller of the Supply of Potatoes in the war, using his ‘terrific powers of bluff’, then relating how Belcher had asked her husband Archie to be his financial advisor on his forthcoming tour to promote the British Empire Exhibition to be held in 1924.

Whether, by the time of the census, the Christies had already agreed to accompany Belcher on his tour, is not documented. But it is interesting to note that only Agatha was a guest, not Archie. Was Belcher showing off his friend the novelist to his other guests, or was he still trying to persuade Agatha to join the tour?

In January 1922 the Christies did indeed depart with Belcher on his tour of the Dominions, to publicise and generate interest in the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. This is documented in a chapter of Agatha’s autobiography, and later in The Grand Tour, a collection of contemporary letters and photographs compiled by Agatha’s grandson Mathew Prichard. Agatha said “Going round the world was one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me” . She wrote to her mother constantly, describing the scenes and people she saw. She describes her seasickness, buying carved wooden animals from native boys at various stations on a train journey through Bechuanaland, and seeing crocodiles in Livingstone.

Belcher proved to be a challenging man to live with for the ten months of their tour, often ‘rude, overbearing, bullying’, reminiscent of a ‘spoilt and naughty child’, but redeemed himself with all his many lion stories.

Janet Morgan in her book Agatha Christie A Biography, tells how Belcher was keen for Agatha to write a detective story about his Mill House and himself. He suggested The Mystery at the Mill House but objected to Agatha’s desire to make him the victim! That title was not used, but in August 1924 The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie was published. The character Sir Eustace Pedlar was indisputably modelled on Ernest Belcher, and the murder scene was the Mill House, but in Marlow, not Clewer. Mathew Prichard believes that Belcher may have been the only real person ever to appear in one of Agatha Christie’s books. The heroine, Anne, suffers seasickness, buys a Noah’s Ark of wooden animals, and sees crocodiles, just as Agatha had described in her letters home. The dedication to the book reads

To E. A. B. IN MEMORY OF A JOURNEY, SOME LION

STORIES AND A REQUEST THAT I SHOULD SOME DAY

WRITE THE “MYSTERY OF THE MILL HOUSE”

For Belcher, the promotional tour had been just the start of his involvement in the British Empire Exhibition. Whilst he and the Christies had been publicising the exhibition and encouraging groups to participate, the once quiet suburb of Wembley was being transformed into a vast modern concrete exhibition centre. In 1923 Belcher moved from his beloved Mill House in Clewer to the Red House in Wembley Hill Road, just outside the exhibition complex.

The exhibition was a huge undertaking and was enjoyed by many thousands of visitors, but it made a massive loss financially. Part of the exhibition, the Empire Stadium with its twin towers, remained for 78 years as Wembley Stadium until it was demolished in 2003.

But that was not the end of the British Empire Exhibition’s connections with Clewer and Windsor. One of the star attractions had been Queen Anne’s Dolls’ House, used as ‘a showcase for British workmanship’. Top artists and craftsmen of the day had produced miniature examples of their work to furnish this house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Always intended as a present for Queen Mary, it is now on permanent display at Windsor Castle.

Jane Cockman

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