Murder at the Manor

Travel Guide

Country houses in England

The English country house is an iconic setting for some of the greatest British crime fiction. Short stories are an important part of this tradition, and writers from Agatha Christie to Margery Allingham became famous for the intricate cases which their detectives unravelled in rambling country houses. These stories continue to enjoy wide appeal, driven partly by nostalgia for a vanished way of life, and partly by the pleasure of trying to solve a fiendishly clued puzzle. This new collection gathers together stories written over a span of about 65 years, during which British society, and life in country houses, was transformed out of all recognition.

Watson and Holmes discuss a possible case in The Copper Beeches.

‘Good heaven’s!’ I cried. ‘Who would associate crime with these dear old
homesteads?
‘They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon
my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a
more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside?
‘You horrify me!’

‘But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the
town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream
of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow does not beget sympathy…
and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close … and there is but a
step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in
its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know
little of the law.