Tilling (Sussex) Tilling (Sussex) Tilling is a fictional coastal town, based on Rye, East Sussex, in the "Mapp and Lucia" novels of Edward Frederic Benson (1867–1940). Tilling takes its 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. 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
Tilling (Sussex) 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). In Rye a lookout, presented by Benson when he was mayor in 1935, stands towards the River Rother and Camber, with a plaque noting that its donor had "immortalised" the town as Tilling through his books. 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