When the crime novelist PD James died last week aged 94, peers including Ruth Rendell, Patricia Cornwall and Ian Rankin were quick to pay tribute to one of the country's finest writers of detective fiction.

The plaudits were not unmerited.

Over a 50-year career, James built a formidable literary canon, and introduced the world to celebrated gentleman police detective Adam Dalgliesh.

She was made a life peer in the House of Lords, a governor of the BBC, and inducted into the Inter- national Crime Writing Hall of Fame. And the origins of all this can be traced back to Kingston.

For it was while living in the town – at 127 Richmond Park Road – that James saw the publication of her 1962 debut novel, Cover Her Face, the first of 14 books starring D Chief Insp Dalgliesh.

She had moved into the house the previous year, with her husband Connor and their two daughters, Jane and Clare.

As James recalled in her 1999 memoir, A Time To Be In Earnest, the family had wanted to move to Richmond, but could not afford it. She wrote: “I thought it would be pleasant to live in Richmond, but taking a day off to reconnoitre, I was told by all the house agents I visited that even a small house or flat in this desirable borough couldn’t be purchased for under £4,000.

“So, on their advice I took the bus to Kingston and there I found a small Victorian Cottage in Richmond Park Road for just over half that sum.

“It’s almost unbelievable now to think that a house could be bought so cheaply.”

Surrey Comet:

James was living in Kingston when her debut novel Cover Her Face was published in 1962

It was in this house that James wrote her second novel, A Mind To Murder.

It was also, as noted by the Comet’s features editor June Sampson in 2008: “From here that one of her daughters got married; and it was here, in 1964, that her husband, whom she loved devotedly, died at the age of 44.”

Connor had been a doctor serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps in India during World War II, but developed depression and spent his final years in and out of psychiatric hospitals.

Despite this, James’ time in Kingston was “one of the happiest in her marriage”, according to George Rome Innes, art historian and a secretary for the Kingston Society.

Mr Rome Innes bought the home from James herself in 1966, and still lives there today. He and his wife remained friends with the writer after she downsized to a flat in Surbiton.

They only lost touch when James moved to Ireland, which Innes says may have been due to a burglary “as well as for tax purposes”.

Mr Rome Innes says: “She was a charming, happy, kind lady. She was unknown then. She wrote her first books here.

“She said these years were the happiest years. She loved living so close to the park. Up until that time she had lived with her in-laws, so this was probably a nice peaceful place to live.”

Surrey Comet:

George Rome Innes outside his home, which he bought from PD James in 1966

James’ presence lives on in the house. Scrawled on plywood beneath the stairs are the names, addresses and phone numbers of important contacts – including her doctor, her gas company and the Bentall Centre. She also left a few other mementos.

“She gave us some furniture in the house, which she couldn’t take with her to her new flat,” says Mr Rome Innes. “And we’re still using her omelette pan.”

Surrey Comet:

The author's handwriting still appears beneath the stairs, where she kept her contact numbers

An ornate wardrobe is also still in use, Innes says.

James never forgot Kingston, returning in 1993 to officially re-open the newly-refurbished Kingston library.

Neither did she forget the owners of her former home.

In 2011, Mr Innes’ daughter went to a book signing for James’ latest – and ultimately final – book, Death Comes to Pemberley.

Mr Rome Innes says: “My daughter told her she grew up in the house, and of course she remembered us. She signed a copy of the book for my wife and I.”