Riseholme (fictional village) Poppy, Duchess of Sheffield, at nearby Sheffield Castle (which Benson located at "Sheffield Bottom"—unconnected to the Yorkshire Sheffield). It was revealed in "Mapp and Lucia" that Lucia's great rival in Tilling, Elizabeth Mapp ("Miss Mapp", 1922) had once visited Riseholme and stayed at the Ambermere Arms. She also hijacked Lucia's "au reservoir" (for "au revoir") and presented it to Tilling society as her own. Cynthia and Tony Revell (1984) "Mr Benson remembered in Rye, and the world of Tilling" cited Sir Steven Runciman (1903–2000), a Cambridge historian who knew Benson well, and Benson's manservant Charlie Tomalin (d.1981) for the assertion
Tilling (Sussex) 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. In the 1980s, following the adaptations by Gerald Savory (1909–96) of Benson's novels for London Weekend Television (1985–86), 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