Lamb House is a Grade II* listed 18th-century house situated in Rye, East Sussex, England, [1] and in the ownership of the National Trust.
The house is run as a writer's house museum. It has been the home of many writers, including Henry James from 1897 to 1914, and later E.F. Benson. [2]
Lamb House was built in 1722 by James Lamb, a wealthy wine merchant and local politician. [3] In the winter of 1726 King George I took refuge at the house after his ship was washed ashore at nearby Camber Sands. James Lamb gave up his bedroom for the King, while Mrs Lamb gave birth to a baby boy during the night. The child was named George and the king consented to be the boy's godfather. [4]
A detached Garden Room, with a large bay window overlooking the street, was built at right angles to the house in 1743, and originally served as a banqueting room. [3] Both Henry James and E. F. Benson later used the Garden Room as a base for their writing during the summer months. The Garden Room was destroyed by a German bomb in 1940. [5] [4]
Benson wrote lovingly of both the garden and house, which he renamed "Mallards", in his popular Mapp and Lucia novels. [6] Lamb House is the subject of Joan Aiken's supernatural book The Haunting of Lamb House (1993), comprising three novellas about residents of the house at different times, including James and Benson (both of whom also wrote ghost stories). [7]
Other tenants have included the novelist Rumer Godden, the author and academic A. C. Benson, the author and politician H. Montgomery Hyde, the artist and publisher Sir Brian Batsford, [8] politician William Mabane, 1st Baron Mabane, [9] the literary agent Graham Watson, [10] the actor Dominic Rowan and his family, [11] and the writers John Senior and Sarah Philo.[ citation needed ]
In 1950 the widow of Henry James's nephew gave Lamb House to the National Trust. [8] Some of James's personal possessions are on display, and there is an extensive walled garden, designed by Alfred Parsons at the request of Henry James, which is open to the public along with the house. [2]
In 2006 Lamb House was subject to extensive exterior refurbishment, including the application of bird control proofing measures to prevent seagulls from nesting and blocking the internal parapet drainage systems. The measures included the use of a new technique of horizontal parallel wires to prevent gulls from landing. Several sections of stonework and the copper roof were replaced. The works lasted for three months, from April to June.
As of 2018, the house will no longer be tenanted and the first floor will be open to the public for the first time. [12]
During summer 2014, Lamb House was used as the fictional "Mallards" for a BBC TV adaptation of E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia . [13] [14] A temporary replica of the Garden Room was constructed for filming. The series was broadcast on BBC1 over three nights in December 2014.
Edward Frederic Benson was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer.
Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales is an English former actor, best known for playing Sybil Fawlty, the bossy wife of Basil Fawlty, in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers; for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution by Alan Bennett ; and for the documentary series Great Canal Journeys (2014–2021), in which she travels on canal barges and narrowboats with her husband, fellow actor Timothy West.
Joan Delano Aiken was an English writer specialising in supernatural fiction and children's alternative history novels. In 1999 she was awarded an MBE for her services to children's literature. For The Whispering Mountain, published by Jonathan Cape in 1968, she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by a panel of British children's writers, and she was a commended runner-up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British writer. She won an Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972) for Night Fall.
Cliveden is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire. The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Burnham and Taplow. The main house sits 40 metres (130 ft) above the banks of the River Thames, and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been three houses on this site: the first, built in 1666, burned down in 1795 and the second house (1824) was also destroyed by fire, in 1849. The present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland.
Rye is a small town and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England, two miles from the sea at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham and the Brede. An important member of the mediaeval Cinque Ports confederation, it was at the head of an embayment of the English Channel, and almost entirely surrounded by the sea.
Montacute House is a late Elizabethan mansion with a garden in Montacute, South Somerset.
Philippa Jane Haywood is an English actress. She won the 2005 Rose d'Or Award for Best Female Comedy Performance for Green Wing (2004–2006). Her other television credits include The Brittas Empire (1991–1997), Chimera (1991) Prisoners' Wives (2012–2013) and Scott & Bailey (2012–2016). In 2018, she played the role of Lorraine Craddock in the BBC television series Bodyguard. In 2019 she appeared in series 4 of the BBC Radio 4 Show The Pin.
Mapp and Lucia is a collective name for a series of novels by E. F. Benson and also the name of two British television adaptations based on those novels.
Steven James Pemberton is a British actor, comedian, director and writer. He is best known as a member of The League of Gentlemen with Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. Pemberton and Shearsmith also co-wrote and starred in the black comedy Psychoville and the anthology series Inside No. 9. His other notable television credits include Doctor Who, Benidorm, Blackpool, Shameless, Whitechapel, Happy Valley and Mapp and Lucia.
Nicholas Woodeson is an English film, television and theatre actor, and Drama Desk and Olivier award nominee.
Barrington Court is a Tudor manor house begun around 1538 and completed in the late 1550s, with a vernacular stable court (1675), situated in Barrington, near Ilminster, Somerset, England.
A Shakespeare garden is a themed garden that cultivates some or all of the 175 plants mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. In English-speaking countries, particularly the United States, these are often public gardens associated with parks, universities, and Shakespeare festivals. Shakespeare gardens are sites of cultural, educational, and romantic interest and can be locations for outdoor weddings.
William Mabane, 1st Baron Mabane, known as Sir William Mabane between 1954 and 1962, was a British businessman and Liberal/National Liberal politician.
Tilling is a fictional coastal town, based on Rye, East Sussex, in the Mapp and Lucia novels of Edward Frederic Benson (1867–1940).
Mary Anderson was an American theatre actress.
Mapp and Lucia is a British drama television series that was first broadcast on BBC One from 29 to 31 December 2014. The three-part series, adapted by Steve Pemberton and directed by Diarmuid Lawrence, is based on E. F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia collection of novels. The series features an ensemble cast, with British actresses Miranda Richardson and Anna Chancellor playing the eponymous characters Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline 'Lucia' Lucas. It is set in the Sussex coastal town of Tilling, based very closely on Rye, East Sussex, where it was filmed and where Benson lived. Although attracting modest viewing figures, the series received positive reviews from critics.
Mapp and Lucia is a British television series, set in the fictional Sussex coastal town of Tilling and based on three 1930s novels by E. F. Benson, beginning with Mapp and Lucia. It was produced by London Weekend Television, filmed in Rye and neighbouring Winchelsea in the 1980s, and starred Prunella Scales as Mapp, Geraldine McEwan as Lucia, Nigel Hawthorne as Georgie, and Denis Lill as Major Benjy. The script was by Gerald Savory. There were ten episodes, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1985 and 1986. These have been repeated over the years, and a new BBC adaptation, Mapp and Lucia, aired in 2014.
Queen Lucia is a 1920 comic novel written by E. F. Benson. It is the first of six novels in the popular Mapp and Lucia series, about idle women in the 1920s and their struggle for social dominance over their small communities. This book introduces Emmeline Lucas, known as Lucia to her friends, the social queen of the fictional Elizabethan village of Riseholme, as well as her husband Philip ("Peppino") Lucas, her best friend Georgie Pillson and her friendly rival, Daisy Quantock.
Miss Mapp is a 1922 comic novel written by E. F. Benson. It is the second of six novels in the popular Mapp and Lucia series, about idle women in the 1920s and their struggle for social dominance over their small communities. This book introduces Miss Mapp, the social tyrant of the fictional coastal town of Tilling, and the cast of Tillingites, including Diva Plaistow, Major Benji Flint, Mr. and Mrs. Wyse, and Quaint Irene. Tilling was inspired by the town of Rye, where Benson lived at Lamb House, with his own commanding view of the High Street inspiring Mapp's domain, Mallards.
Mapp and Lucia is a 1931 comic novel written by E. F. Benson. It is the fourth of six novels in the popular Mapp and Lucia series, about idle women in the 1920s and their struggle for social dominance over their small communities. It brings together two sets of characters from three previous Benson novels: "Lucia" Lucas, Georgie Pillson and Daisy Quantock from Queen Lucia (1920) and Lucia in London (1927), and Miss Elizabeth Mapp and her neighbours from Miss Mapp (1922).
