E. F. Benson - Rye, England, UK
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Metro2
N 50° 57.108 E 000° 44.127
31U E 340941 N 5646906
Not only did the author E.F.Benson, use Rye as the setting for his fictional town of Tilling, but he also served as Mayor.
Waymark Code: WM186B8
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/07/2023
Views: 2
A few steps from Rye's town gate is this lookout over the river valley below the heights. A plaque on one of the columns of the lookout reads:
"THIS LOOKOUT WAS GIVEN
IN 1935 BY E.F.BENSON
WHEN MAYOR OF RYE, HE
IMMORTALIZED THIS TOWN
AS "TILLING" IN HIS
MAPP AND LUCIA NOVELS"
The Mapp and Lucia series is a set of comical farces about the comings and goings and competition amongst the elite set in the fictional town of Tilling...which is clearly Rye in real life.
Read more about Benson at (
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"The Mapp and Lucia series, written relatively late in his career, consists of six novels and two short stories. The novels are: Queen Lucia, Miss Mapp, Lucia in London, Mapp and Lucia, Lucia's Progress (published as The Worshipful Lucia in the United States) and Trouble for Lucia. The short stories are "The Male Impersonator" and "Desirable Residences". Both appear in anthologies of Benson's short stories, and the former is also often appended to the end of the novel Miss Mapp.
In February 1983 BBC Radio 4 broadcast Trouble for Lucia – a 12-part adaptation by Aubrey Woods of the first four novels. In April and May 2007 BBC Radio 4 broadcast Mapp and Lucia – a 10-part adaptation by Ned Sherrin. In 2008 BBC Radio 4 broadcast Lucia's Progress – a five-part dramatisation by John Peacock of the fifth novel.
The last three novels were dramatised by Gerald Savory for a 10-episode TV series produced by London Weekend Television and broadcast in two five-part runs between 1985 and 1986 on the then recently launched Channel 4. Titled Mapp and Lucia, the series featured Geraldine McEwan as Lucia, Prunella Scales as Mapp and Nigel Hawthorne as Georgie. In 2007 the British channel ITV3 broadcast the 1985–1986 series. A three-part dramatisation by Steve Pemberton – starring Miranda Richardson as Mapp, Anna Chancellor as Lucia and Steve Pemberton as Georgie – was broadcast on BBC One over consecutive evenings between 29 and 31 December 2014."