Okehampton and The Sittaford Mystery

At the northern edge of Dartmoor lies the town of Okehampton, which Agatha Christie calls Exhampton in her novel The Sittaford Mystery. With the strong cool winds and driving rain we encountered in July 2015, my wife and I can only imagine the harsh conditions that occur in winter. Yet in Agatha Christie's mystery, a woman and her daughter from South Africa rent Sittaford House, a large house six miles out of town, and during the winter months, when tourists are rare in this area of England. 

Okehampton Castle, which is mentioned in The Sittaford Mystery, was owned by the Courtenay family for three hundred-and-fifty years. Yet it was only occupied for a few months each year, presumably during the warmer summer months. I wish we'd encountered those! But then, Edward Courtenay, who stayed in the castle in 1384, employed 135 people to make the castle more livable during his stay.

At the beginning of the novel, we meet Major Burnaby, a resident of Sittaford, a small village near the castle. Although he's mostly a solitary soul, he often spends an evening in the company of his friend Captain Trevelyan, who originally bought the land, built his own Sittaford House, and then built enough cottages to form a little village. This evening the snow is falling so heavily Major Burnaby does not wish to walk the six miles down to Exhampton (Okehampton) to visit Captain Trevelyan in the house he is renting at a much cheaper rate. So he takes up an invitation from Mrs. Willit and her daughter, who are renting Sittaford House for the winter. 

The houses in Sittaford don't have phones. When it snows, the roads become impassable.  Without access to the Internet, or even phones, the residents are cut off from the outside world. They can't even get mail or newspapers until the weather breaks, making a journey on foot to the village possible. 

The novel is set in the 1930s, when it was written and published. Although it was only ninety years ago, the world Agatha Christie describes seems far removed from today. Thankfully, although we had not yet read The Sittaford Mystery, my wife and I brought provisions during our visit to Okehampton Castle. Had the hard driving rain we encountered that July washed out the roads, we could have survived until a search and rescue team, headed by someone like the hardy Major Burnaby, reached us. 

Dragon Dave