Tilling (Sussex)

Tilling is a fictional coastal town, based precisely on Rye, East Sussex, in the "Mapp and Lucia" novels of Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940).

Town in the novels of E F Benson

Tilling takes it name from the River Tillingham which flows through Rye. Benson himself moved to Rye in 1918, where he lived in Lamb House, former home of the novelist, Henry James. Benson was mayor of Rye 1934-7 and was elected Speaker of the Cinque Ports in 1936.

Inhabitants of Tilling were known as "Tillingites", of whom there were about 4,000 in Benson's time.

Mapp and Lucia

Tilling first appeared in "Miss Mapp" (1922) and subsequently in "The Male Impersonator" and "Desirable Residences" (short stories of 1929), "Mapp and Lucia" (1931), set between June 1930 and the spring of 1931, in which Emmeline Lucas ("Lucia") and Elizabeth Mapp clashed swords for the first time, "Lucia's Progress" (1935) and "Trouble for Lucia" (1939). The novelist Susan Leg, the subject of "Secret Lives" (1932), re-appeared in "Trouble for Lucia".

In the 1980s, following the adaptations by Gerald Savory (1909-96) of Benson's novels for London Weekend Television (1985-6), in which Tilling was referred to as "Tilling-on-Sea" (a form unknown in the books), two pastiches by Tom Holt (b.1961), based in Tilling, were published by Macmillan: "Lucia in Wartime" (1985) and "Lucia Triumphant" (1986). Holt also produced a short story, "Diplomatic Incident", for the former Tilling Society in 1998 and another called "Great Minds" for the Friends of Tilling in 2006. The Friends of Tilling organize an annual gathering in Rye each September for devotees of Mapp & Lucia and E F Benson's other comic novels. A brand new Tilling book "Major Benjy" has been written by Guy Fraser-Sampson and is published by Troubador.

The first Lucia book, "Queen Lucia", was published in 1920. It was followed in 1927 by "Lucia in London". Benson's "The Freaks of Mayfair" (1916) provided the genesis of some of the characters of Tilling. Specifically, "Aunt Georgie", a bachelor with a penchant for embroidery, provided the model for George Pillson, who, as with Lucia, with whom he entered into a platonic marriage in "Lucia's Progress", originally lived at Riseholme (thought to have been modelled on Broadway) in the Cotswolds.

In the final Benson Lucia book "Trouble for Lucia" Tilling seems to be no longer in Sussex but in Hampshire.

Topography

Lamb House was the model for "Mallards", the home initially of Elizabeth Mapp and subsequently of Lucia, who re-named it Mallards House.

Cynthia & Tony Reavell (1984) "E F Benson: Mr Benson remembered in Rye, and the World of Tilling" contained a map of Tilling that drew on references in the books and the layout of Rye itself. A similar plan was reproduced in Holt's novels. In some instances, the street names of Tiling and Rye coincided - for example, High Street (the location of Godiva Plaistow's house, "Wasters") and West Street ("Quaint" Irene Coles' "Taormina") - but there were some variations: Mermaid Street became, in Tilling, Porpoise Street (where Algernon and Susan Wyse lived); Market Road was Malleson Street (Woolgar & Pipstow, the estate agents); and Watchbell Street was Curfew Street (the Trader's Arms).

"Tilling Gazette"

The local newspaper in the TV version was the "Tilling Gazette" and in the book "Lucia's Progress" it was the "Hastings Chronicle" but in "Trouble for Lucia", this inexplicably became the "Hampshire Argus" (editor, Mr McConnell). (In Savory's adaptation for television, McConnell was introduced to Elizabeth Mapp by her intoxicated husband, Major "Benjy" Mapp-Flint, as "a veritable tillar of Pilling".)

Imports from Riseholme

The custom in Tilling of saying "au reservoir" as a valediction (in place of the French" au revoir") was a feature of "Miss Mapp", although it became apparent in "Mapp and Lucia" that it had originated with Lucia in Riseholme. It was transported to Tilling by Elizabeth Mapp who had stayed one summer at the Ambermere Arms in Riseholme. The lexicographer Eric Partridge suggested that in fact the term had orginiated in America in the 1880s ["Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English", several editions 1937-61] .

Lucia's celebrated recipe Lobster "à la Riseholme" was first served in Tilling in "Mapp and Lucia".

Riseborough

Benson's "Mrs Ames" (1912) was set in Riseborough, which also bore a resemblance to Rye. Though this antedated Benson's move to Rye, he already knew the town well, having, for example, first visited Henry James at Lamb House in 1900 [Benson (1940) "Final Edition"] .

Notes