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
Thomas Tilling Railway; and London and North Eastern Railway. During the 1920s, the "Big Four" divested themselves of much of the operations of their bus networks by transferring their interests to Tilling and BET in exchange for shares. The Tilling family's association with the company ended in 1929 with the death of Richard Tilling. In 1931, Thomas Tilling Ltd acquired the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company, along with the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company, whose bus construction activities were renamed the Eastern Coach Works Ltd (ECW) in 1936. In 1933, the new London Passenger Transport Board compulsorily acquired the 328 buses that made