Tower and Town, May 2024 (view the full edition)Mysterious affairs at Styles and ChartersDuring the late 1980s I took break from academia to lead industrial Research & Development. One night I received a call from a professional inviting me for discussion with a global company at an address in Ascot. This led to unsuspected encounters with two mysterious country houses when I later found myself sitting at my new desk gazing through a grand vertical window. I was by then taking care of the mysterious affair at Charters, the growing of diamonds from gas, which was at that time a guarded secret for my new employer, De Beers. My office was within Charters House, Sunningdale, (Ascot), a 1938 country house designed by Adie Button & Partners. At that time, Christopher Hussey in the pages of Country Life was positively ecstatic: 'Charters, is in the broad sense, an illustration of how modern science and industrial craftsmanship can help to carry on that tradition of civilisation of which the great English country house has for so long been the highest expression.' Charters was owned at one time by Sir Montague Burton, the tailoring giant, it eventually became a corporate headquarters for aircraft manufacturer Vickers Armstrong, then De Beers. In other words, it was a house that held many mysteries, plus of course those during my own time. What is also interesting is that during my time at Charters House I was in fact within walking distance along Charters Road, Sunningdale, from another mysterious country house, half-timbered with imposing chimneys. This was indeed the property bought by Archibald and Agatha Christie in June 1926, and ominously named it the Styles, after Styles Court in Agatha's first crime novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1921). In principle, the year 1926 should have been wonderful for Agatha Christie, (1890-1976), not least because of the publication of her great book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. However, it didn't turn out that way as Archibold had already developed a passion for golf, and for one of its practitioners, Nancy Neele. Consequently, the year turned out to be most traumatic for Agatha, precipitating her widely reported strange disappearance on the night of 3 December 1926, and her subsequent divorce in 1928. Raik Jarjis |