Fairfax House will next month launch a new mystery tour for older children, featuring a gallery of Georgian mouse characters and a stolen necklace. STEPHEN LEWIS has an exclusive preview...

IT IS 1764, and the resident mice of Fairfax House are in uproar. A valuable diamond necklace - the Fairfax Brilliants - has been stolen, and the search is on for the culprit.

The news has even made it into the pages of the York Courant. "On Wednesday last, a robbery occurred at Fairfax House, Castlegate," that august newspaper informs its readers. "A rare diamond necklace of much worth, ‘The Fairfax Brilliants’, was taken. No use of force to gain entry was detected."

Gregory Townmouse, head of the household of wealthy city mice who live, quite literally, under the feet of Fairfax House's human inhabitants, has offered a reward for the return of the magnificent necklace he'd given to his daughter Anne for her birthday. And there is already a list of suspects.

The necklace had been left out by mistake on the afternoon of that 'Wednesday last' by mousemaid Molly Pickering. And during the course of the afternoon and evening there was a succession of visitors to the house who all had an opportunity to take it.

There was James O'Connall, the 'gentlemouse caller' who visited the house at 4pm; dressmaker Hannath Garthwaite, who called to measure Anne for a new dress at 5pm; Mousieur Seguin, the French confectioner with a shop in Stonegate, who visited at 6pm; the swarthy-faced Tobias Labadee, a sailor who had arrived on a ship moored on the Ouse and had been seen lurking outside the house; Thomas Kip, the one-armed linkboy (or should that be linkmouse?) who lives in the stews that are the Water Lanes and who called at 7pm; and, of course, poor Molly the mousemaid herself.

York Press:

Suspect: Molly Pickering, the mousemaid

But which one is the guilty party? The game's afoot, as Sherlock Holmes might have said (had he been born in 1764, and had he been a mouse)...

Welcome to Fairfax House's 'Mystery of the Missing Jewel', a new mystery quiz for children aged 8-12 (and possibly a few grown up children as well) which will go live at the Georgian mansion next month.

Children will be invited to turn detective for a mystery tour of the house. They will get to read 'witness statements' from several of the house's mouse characters, then will be turned loose on the house itself to find a series of clues which they'll be able to use to solve the mystery.

At the end, they'll be able to find out whether they got it right - and will then sit in judgement on the offending mouse. This being Georgian times, they'll be able to choose between some pretty nasty punishments, says Hannah Phillip, Fairfax House's director: hanging, transportation - or imprisonment in York Castle.

The mouse mystery was Hannah's brainchild - it has been designed as a way of bringing more fun and so more children into York's most famous Georgian townhouse.

York Press:

Fairfax House director Hannah Phillip on the Georgian mansion's main staircase

Younger children will already be familiar with Gregory the townhouse mouse, who first made his appearance in a booklet for 4 to 8-year-olds at Fairfax House last year.

It has proved very popular, Hannah says. So popular that she decided it would be good to have something a little more sophisticated and exciting to engage older children. A Cluedo-style whodunnit featuring a cast of mouse characters seemed the perfect answer.

The mouse mystery has been brought to glorious life with the help of Jenna Drury of Mud Pie Arts, who worked with Hannah on developing the characters and plotline, and above all York illustrator Nick Ellwood, who has produced a series of stunning paintings of the characters.

The paintings were partly inspired by Hogarth, admits Nick, whose work appears regularly in The Guardian, and who has also done illustrations for York Art Gallery. And there's certainly something a little darker about some of them.

York Press:

Nick Ellwood at work in his York studio

Hannah Phillip admits she loves what they reveal about the seamier side of Georgian York - not only in Fairfax House itself, but out on the streets, too.

Thomas Kip, the one-armed linkmouse, is seen climbing some rough wooden steps to the loft where he lives with his family in the stews that are Water Lanes - the alleys leading down to the River Ouse from central York.

They were notorious for poverty and vice, Hannah says - and you can see that in Nick's wonderful painting. The street is strewn with rubbish and dirty water; a drunk sits senseless against a wall; a narrow wooden walkway navigates a precarious path down the centre of the filthy street.

York Press:

Nick Ellwood's drawing of Water Lanes, with Thomas Kip the linkmouse climbing a ladder to his loft

A link boy was a street urchin who, in Georgian York, would have earned a few pennies carrying a torch to light the way for the sedan chairs of the wealthy, Hannah says. So Thomas would have plenty of motivation to steal a priceless diamond bracelet.

Tobias Labadee the sailor mouse is certainly a tough-looking character. There would indeed have been ships of a fairly substantial size coming all the way up the Ouse into York in Georgian times, says Hannah, and the sailors lives would have been hard. So might Tobias be the culprit?

York Press:

Suspect: Tobias Labadee

Then there's Mousieur Seguin, the French confectioner. At first glance he seems fairy wealthy, with his waistcoat stretched over an ample belly. But he looks a little disreputable and seedy, too - and careful observers won't miss the beggar mouse sitting in the street behind him. He's got money problems, it turns out - so might he be the thief?

York Press:

Suspect: Mouseiur Seguin

All these plus the other suspects have their own motives for stealing the necklace, Hannah admits. Nick's brilliant paintings - which young detectives trying to solve the mystery will be able to scrutinise on special cards as they go around Fairfax House - contain clues to the suspects' characters.

But it will be up to the amateur sleuths themselves to piece together all the clues, interpret the witness statements, and solve the mystery. Along the way, they'll hopefully find out a lot about life in Georgian York too.

York Press:

Suspect: Hannah Garthwaite, the dressmaker mouse, at a fitting with Anne.

You'll have to wait until April 9, unfortunately, when the mouse mystery quest is officially launched. After that, it will be a permanent fixture at the house.

Until then, however, you'll have to make do with this selection of Nick's brilliant paintings.

Start scrutinising them now for clues about the various characters...

  • The Mystery of the Missing Jewel quest will officially launch at Fairfax House on Saturday April 9.