St. Mary Mead St. Mary Mead St. Mary Mead was the fictional village created by popular crime fiction author Dame Agatha Christie. The quaint, sleepy village was home to the renowned detective spinster Miss Marple. However, Christie first described a village of that name prior to Marple's introduction, in the 1928 Hercule Poirot novel "The Mystery of the Blue Train". In that novel, St. Mary Mead is home to the book's protagonist Katherine Grey. The village was first mentioned in a Miss Marple book in 1930, when it was the setting for the first Marple novel, "The Murder at the Vicarage". Miss Marple's
Marple Hall School the house are still visible just outside the grounds of the school. These two figures give their names to the two main buildings of the modern school. The grammar school's first headmaster was Reginald Hill. The grammar school later had separate boys and girls schools. Marple Hall County Grammar School for Girls opened in 1965 and had 750 girls in 1967, and 1000 by 1971. Marple Hall Grammar School for Boys had 1000 boys in 1972. In 1967 the girls school had a six form entry. The head teacher of the girls school up to 1974 was Miss Una Drake.