Agatha Christie inspiration Burgh Island for sale at £15m

Burgh Island has permission for a redevelopment costing up to £10m

An island and hotel where Agatha Christie based two of her novels is on the market for £15m.

Burgh Island, off Bigbury-on-Sea, South Devon, comes with a Grade II-listed white art deco hotel where the thriller writer stayed.

The island and hotel were sold in 2018 for about £8.4m.

Owner Giles Fuchs said the hotel, which won planning permission for a £7-10m redevelopment in 2022, was a "demanding mistress".

The hotel was a favourite of Agatha Christie and inspired two of her novels

The tidal island is accessible by a vehicle called a sea tractor at high tides.

The planned upgrade includes a new west wing for the hotel, extensions to the bar and 14th Century Pilchard Inn on the island, new staff rooms, a spa and a new restaurant on the mainland.

"I'm not the man for that job because once you start that, you need to do the whole thing," Mr Fuchs, director of Office Space in Town, told BBC News.

"It's also a substantial amount of cash and I don't want to find another £7m, thanks very much.

"We've got a big business in London and I could divert funds but the hotel was always about a love story; it was saving something that had been around for years that our family fell in love with.

"To divert more funds doesn't make any sense to us. We want to buy more buildings in London."

Burgh Island is accessible at high tide by a sea tractor

He said the "huge amount of emotional effort" involved in running the hotel had "taken its toll".

"She's a demanding mistress and I ended up getting more and more involved at the expense of my life and other businesses," he said.

Turnover had risen from about £2.4m in 2018 to about £6.3m last year, he said, adding: "I'm really pleased we've turned it around."

A former care home earmarked for staff accommodation, as well as a cafe and Warren Cottage at Bigbury-on-Sea, were not part of the sale and would be leased to the hotel, he said.

Burgh Island

• Inspired the setting for the Agatha Christie novels And Then There Were None and the Hercule Poirot mystery Evil Under the Sun

• The 2002 TV adaptation of Evil Under The Sun used the island as a filming location

• The hotel was visited by playwright Noel Coward in the 1930s

• Several scenes from the BBC's 1987 dramatisation of Christie's story Nemesis were also filmed in the hotel

• At high tide the island is cut off from the mainland and visitors can only get there on a sea tractor