LETTERS written by world-famous crime novelist Agatha Christie have been uncovered by staff at Wallingford Museum.

The author lived at Winterbrook House, Wallingford, for more than 40 years with her husband Sir Max Mallowan, and was president of the town’s drama group, the Sinodun Players, from 1951 to 1976.

Last year, the museum curators were criticised for not doing enough to record the town’s links with the author.

But now Judy Dewey, the curator of the museum at Flint House in High Street, is hoping the discovery of 15 Christie letters, which are on display, will help to double the number of visitors.

Three of the letters, which have come from the museum’s own archives, have never been seen by the general public before and the majority of the other 12 — discovered by Mrs Dewey in the Sinodun Players’ archive — will also get a first public viewing.

Mrs Dewey said: “There has already been a lot of interest shown in these letters and finding them has given us a very good start to the season.

“We only got 2,000 visitors in total last year, which is quite a small number, but we are hoping to double that.

“Some of the letters have been given to us on loan from the Sinodun Players, while a number come from the museum’s own archive.

“Nearly all the letters have never been seen before, and we are using them to present ‘Agatha Christie at home in Wallingford’.

“She was a very private person and did not want a lot of publicity in Wallingford, but she was a very faithful president of the Sinodun Players. Mathew Pritchard, Agatha Christie’s grandson, has told us that as far as he was concerned, his grandparents lived in Wallingford. He considered it to be the family home.

“One of the letters from the museum’s collection refers to the author giving three pounds and three shillings towards the town’s coat of arms in 1955 and she refers to it as ‘our coat of arms’, which shows she felt part of Wallingford. She wanted to have a private life here and that was well respected by the community. She happened to be born in Torquay, but her home was Wallingford.

“In another letter, the author reflects on her old age. The letters tell a story.

“The museum owns three Christie letters and what is important is their intrinsic interest, not their saleable value. They are part of the archive that belongs to Wallingford and are not to be for sale.”

Mrs Dewey said she hoped the new Agatha Christie display, which opened on March 1, would run for two years.

“If local people come forward with more information and more material, then we could expand what we have got on display,” she added.

Mrs Dewey said museum volunteers were grateful to local firm Walter Wilder, which used to run an iron foundry in Crowmarsh, for a £5,000 donation to refurbish display areas.

But she added that a project to build a new annexe for the museum was still on hold because of a legal dispute over its design.

Mrs Dewey said: “Next month, the museum will celebrate its 30th anniversary. It has been run by volunteers for the past 30 years and we hope it will still be here in 30 years’ time.”