A County Written Into Literature
Devon has a gift for getting under a writer's skin. Something about the combination of wild coastline, rolling farmland, ancient moorland, and sheltered river valleys has drawn writers here for centuries — not just to visit, but to live, to work, and to set their most famous stories against its landscape. The result is a literary heritage that rivals anywhere in England.
This is not a county that produced one or two notable authors. Devon can claim the best-selling novelist of all time, a Poet Laureate, one of the founders of English Romantic poetry, the author of a novel so beloved that a town was named after it, and the setting for one of the most famous detective stories ever written. And those are just the highlights.
What makes Devon's literary connections particularly rewarding to explore is that so many of the places are still there. You can visit the house where Agatha Christie spent her holidays, walk the moors that inspired Conan Doyle, stand outside the vicarage where Coleridge was born, and follow the river valleys that R.D. Blackmore transformed into the backdrop for one of Victorian England's greatest romances. These are not abstract connections — they are places you can touch.
Agatha Christie: The Queen of Crime and Her Devon
Torquay: Where It All Began
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, in a villa called Ashfield on Barton Road. She would go on to write 66 detective novels, 14 short-story collections, and the world's longest-running play — The Mousetrap, which has been performed in London's West End since 1952. Her books have sold more than two billion copies, making her the best-selling fiction author of all time.
Torquay shaped Christie profoundly. She grew up in a comfortable Edwardian household overlooking Tor Bay, swam in the sea, attended local parties, and absorbed the social dynamics of an English seaside resort — dynamics that would later fuel countless murder mysteries set in hotels, country houses, and genteel coastal towns.
Today, the Agatha Christie Mile is a walking trail through Torquay that connects the key sites of her life. The trail runs roughly 1.3 miles from the Imperial Hotel to the Grand Hotel, and you could spend a whole day on it if you stop at the attractions along the way. The Imperial Hotel, built in 1866, appears in Peril at End House under the guise of the Majestic Hotel. The Grand Hotel is where Christie spent her honeymoon night with Archie Christie on Christmas Eve 1914.
Along the route, you will find Torre Abbey — Torquay's oldest building, dating to 1196 — which houses the Agatha Christie Potent Plants collection, inspired by the poisons and potions in her novels. Christie had a genuine fascination with pharmacology, having worked as a dispenser during the First World War, and her knowledge of poisons is one of the distinguishing features of her detective fiction.
The Torquay Museum houses the UK's only dedicated Agatha Christie Gallery, where you can step inside a reconstruction of Poirot's study and lounge. It is a surprisingly moving experience — not because of the props, but because it gives you a sense of the imaginative world that Christie carried in her head for decades.
The Agatha Christie Mile works brilliantly as a group outing. Walk it with friends, stop for coffee at Torre Abbey, spend an hour in the Torquay Museum's Christie Gallery, and finish with lunch overlooking the harbour. For a deeper literary day out, combine it with a visit to Greenway in the afternoon — the ferry from Torquay harbour takes you right there.
Greenway: The Loveliest Place in the World
In 1938, Christie and her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, bought Greenway — a white Georgian house dating from around 1780, set in gardens that sweep down to the River Dart near the village of Galmpton. Christie had seen the property during her youth and always considered it the most perfect of the various properties on the Dart. She called it "the loveliest place in the world."
Greenway was Christie's holiday home and retreat from 1938 until her death in 1976. It featured, under various disguises, in several of her novels, including Dead Man's Folly, Five Little Pigs, and Ordeal by Innocence. The house and its grounds are now owned by the National Trust, and visiting is a genuine pleasure — not just for Christie fans, but for anyone who appreciates a beautiful house in an extraordinary setting.
The house retains many of Christie's personal belongings, including her library, her archaeological collection from digs with Mallowan in the Middle East, and her writing desk. The gardens, which run down a steep hillside to the Dart, are planted with magnolias, camellias, and rare specimen trees. It is about a 25-minute drive from Torquay, but the more atmospheric approach is by ferry along the Dart.
Ted Hughes: The Poet Laureate of North Tawton
Ted Hughes is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, and Devon was his home for nearly four decades. In the autumn of 1961, Hughes and Sylvia Plath moved to Court Green, an 18th-century thatched former manor house in North Tawton — a quiet market town in mid-Devon, about 20 miles west of Exeter.
Court Green became Hughes's anchor. He lived there, on and off, from 1961 until his death in 1998. It was here that he wrote Crow (1970) and most of his later work, including Moortown Diary, which directly draws on his experience of farming in Devon — the lambing, the livestock, the unforgiving physical demands of working the land.
Hughes's poetry is saturated with the Devon landscape. To read his work is to enter a world dominated by nature — foxes, hawks, crows, rivers, seasons. The rural landscape exerted a lasting influence, and his later poems about farming in Devon are among the most visceral and honest depictions of agricultural life in English literature. They are poems where you can feel the mud and the cold.
In 1984, Hughes was appointed Poet Laureate, an office he held until his death. In August 1970, he married Carol Orchard, a local woman, and they lived together at Court Green for the rest of his life. A blue plaque was unveiled on the wall of the Town Council office building in North Tawton in April 2011, commemorating Hughes as Poet Laureate and parishioner from 1961 to 1998.
The Ted Hughes Poetry Trail
For those who want to engage with Hughes's work in a Devon landscape, the Ted Hughes Poetry Trail at Stover Country Park near Newton Abbot is a lovely outing. The trail features 16 specially designed poetry posts, each displaying a poem by Hughes on a theme relating to the natural world. It is a gentle walk through woodland and around a lake, and reading the poems in the landscape they describe gives them a power that the printed page alone cannot match.
The trail is free, accessible, and open year-round. It works wonderfully as a group activity — read the poems aloud, discuss them as you walk, and let the landscape do the rest. If you enjoy exploring Dartmoor with friends, the poetry trail at Stover makes an excellent companion visit.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Romantic Who Started in Devon
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772 in Ottery St Mary, a handsome market town in East Devon about 12 miles east of Exeter. His father, the Reverend John Coleridge, was the vicar of St Mary's Church and headmaster of the King's School, a free grammar school established by Henry VIII.
Coleridge was the youngest of ten children. After his father's death in 1781, eight-year-old Samuel was sent to Christ's Hospital school in London, and his life thereafter took him to Cambridge, to the Lake District with Wordsworth, and eventually to a tortured existence of opium addiction and extraordinary poetry. But Devon remained his birthplace and the landscape of his earliest memories.
Today, a blue plaque marks the house where Coleridge was born in Ottery St Mary. The town itself is worth visiting — the Church of St Mary is a magnificent 14th-century building modelled on Exeter Cathedral, and the town retains much of its Georgian character. Every November, Ottery hosts the famous Tar Barrel Rolling, a tradition dating back centuries in which blazing tar barrels are carried through the streets. It is not directly connected to Coleridge, but it is the kind of eccentric local tradition that would have delighted a Romantic poet.
Ottery St Mary makes an excellent day trip from Exeter, especially if you combine it with a visit to Darts Farm in nearby Topsham for lunch. You get Romantic poetry, a beautiful church, and some of the best local food in Devon — all within a 30-minute drive. For more on Devon's food and drink heritage, see our dedicated guide.
R.D. Blackmore and Lorna Doone: Exmoor's Great Romance
Richard Doddridge Blackmore was not born in Devon — he was born in Longworth, Berkshire, in 1825 — but Devon ran through his veins. His mother died when he was an infant, and he was raised by an aunt in Elsfield, Oxfordshire. He attended Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon, and it was the landscape of North Devon and Exmoor that captured his imagination and produced his masterpiece.
Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor, first published in 1869, is set in the late 17th century in the dramatic landscape where Devon and Somerset meet. The novel tells the story of John Ridd, a farmer's son whose father was murdered by the notorious Doone clan — once nobles, now outlaws living in a secluded valley on Exmoor. John falls in love with Lorna Doone, a young woman raised by the clan, and the novel follows their love story against a backdrop of historical events including the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685.
The novel's first edition — published anonymously in three volumes with only 500 copies printed, of which just 300 sold — was a commercial failure. But when it was republished in a single affordable volume the following year, it became a sensation. It has never been out of print since.
The Lorna Doone Valley on Exmoor is now managed by the National Trust and remains one of the most beautiful spots in Devon. You can walk through the landscape that Blackmore described, following the East Lyn River through steep-sided, oak-wooded valleys. There is a tearoom at Malmsmead, and the walks in the area range from gentle riverside strolls to more demanding hikes up onto the open moor.
One of Blackmore's inspirations was said to be the shooting of Mary Whiddon on her wedding day at the parish church in Chagford, Devon, in the 17th century — a story that is still told locally and that adds another layer to the web of Devon's literary connections.
Charles Kingsley: The Man Who Named a Town
Charles Kingsley was born on 12 June 1819 at Holne Vicarage on the southern edge of Dartmoor — the same village where the River Dart begins its journey to the sea. He became a clergyman, novelist, and social reformer, and although he spent most of his working life as rector of Eversley in Hampshire, Devon drew him back repeatedly.
Kingsley wrote Westward Ho! in 1855 while staying at Northdown Hall in Bideford. The historical novel, set during the Elizabethan era, celebrates the seafaring adventures of North Devon's sailors and was a huge popular success. It was so successful, in fact, that a seaside resort was founded near Bideford in 1863 and named after the book — Westward Ho!, complete with exclamation mark. It remains the only place name in the United Kingdom that contains one.
Kingsley also regularly stayed in Clovelly, the impossibly picturesque fishing village on the North Devon coast where cobbled streets cascade down a cliff face to a tiny harbour. His connections to North Devon were deep and affectionate, and his novels brought the region's history and landscape to a national audience.
Literary Pilgrimages With Friends
Devon's literary landscape is rich enough to fill weeks of exploration, but here are three day trips that work particularly well as group outings.
The Agatha Christie Day
Start in Torquay with the Agatha Christie Mile. Walk from the Imperial Hotel to the Grand Hotel, stopping at Torre Abbey and the Torquay Museum. Have lunch in town, then take the ferry to Greenway for the afternoon. Allow a full day and book Greenway tickets in advance through the National Trust website.
The Dartmoor Literary Circuit
Begin at Wistman's Wood near Two Bridges — the ancient oakwood that inspired Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles. Walk through the West Dart valley, then drive to Princetown and the Museum of Dartmoor Life, which has an exhibition on the novel. Finish with a pint at the Warren House Inn, the highest pub in southern England, where the fire has been burning continuously since 1845. For more on Dartmoor's ancient history and legends, see our dedicated guide.
The East Devon Poetry Trail
Start at Ottery St Mary and Coleridge's birthplace. Drive to Stover Country Park for the Ted Hughes Poetry Trail. Finish at Darts Farm in Topsham for a late lunch and a wander around the farm shop. This route covers two major poets and some of the finest countryside in the county.
A book club trip to literary Devon makes a brilliant alternative to your usual monthly meeting. Pick a novel — The Hound of the Baskervilles, Lorna Doone, or one of Christie's Devon-set mysteries like Dead Man's Folly — read it in advance, then visit the places that inspired it. Reading a book is one thing. Walking through its landscape with friends is something else entirely.
Why Literature Connects Us
There is a reason book clubs have endured while so many other social formats have come and gone. Stories create common ground. When you have both read the same book, you have a shared experience to discuss, disagree about, and bond over. And when you visit the places where those stories were born — standing at Greenway looking out over the Dart, or walking through the mist on Dartmoor imagining the Hound — the connection deepens.
Devon's literary heritage is not a dusty, academic subject. It is alive in the landscape. It is in the view from Christie's window, the moorland that Doyle crossed on foot, the rivers where Hughes watched otters and kingfishers. These are places you can visit with friends and come away feeling that you have shared something meaningful — not just a pleasant day out, but an encounter with the stories that have shaped how we see this corner of England.
If you have been looking for something to do with friends that goes beyond the usual dinner or cinema trip, a literary pilgrimage through Devon might be exactly what you need. Pack a copy of your chosen novel, bring a flask of tea, and head for the hills. The county's greatest writers will show you the way.
And if you love discovering Devon's artisan food traditions as much as its literature, the best literary outings always end with a good meal.