Museford City Outskirts

As you head away from the centre of town, past the suburbs, you end up in the less built-up areas of the city. That isn't to say there's nothing to see here, though. If you know where to look, the outskirts of Museford have plenty of places to enjoy and explore, including a number of heritage sites.

Closer to a castle than a stately home, Museford Manor used to house the nobility responsible for Museford and its environs. Long uninhabited, it is now free to visit and explore. While the furnished areas are roped off to preserve them, the flower gardens, courtyard, cellars and battlements are all accessible. While the site is privately owned, it is maintained through donations made via the Museford Heritage Foundation, a charity established for the purpose of maintaining and restoring heritage sites in Museford, as well as keeping them open to the public.

Still called the Forest of Dreams by the older citizens of Museford, this wooded area on the outskirts is one of the few untouched natural habitats still considered part of the city. The river Muse runs through it as it enters the town. To this day, the forest remains a popular area for hikers, and the glade at the heart of the area is known to be prime picnic location.

There have been occasional excitable tabloid stories over the years of sightings of the “monster of Museford”, supposedly a bear, or possibly escaped leopard, living in the forest, but despite much attention from cryptozoologists, no one has ever obtained any evidence of the beast.

While it once provided much of the stone that comprises Museford Manor and other historical sites, Museford Quarry is very much out-of-use nowadays. Though it used to see life as a makeshift playground for teens to explore, the wider array of entertainment available in the city centre has led to this less-than-safe pastime being more or less abandoned.

Once a tin mine, this underground tunnel system has its entrance near the Old Quarry. The tunnels near the entrance are well fortified and mapped out, making them safe to enter, but straying beyond the marked safe zone is not advised. This hasn't stopped people from trying, though.

Jackie Carver (she/her): It's hard to live without the conveniences of the city nowadays, but Jackie lives a life about as separate from society as one can be in Museford. While she occasionally appears in town for supplies, all most people see of her is the smoke that occasionally rises from her home somewhere within Museford Forest.

Lord Horatio Hardcastle (he/him): Hereditary Earl of Ditherington, Lord Hardcastle is the local aristocrat and owner of Museford Manor, as well as the titles to a sizeable amount of other property in the city. He also owns the Hardcastle Housing and Loan Co, the traditional family banking and property firm. A portly man with a long white handlebar moustache, what he lacks in patience is more than made up for in appetite. His marital estrangement, as well as the lack of an heir to the Hardcastle fortune, has caused some interest in the pages of Tatler.¹⁾

Due to the poor state of the Manor, the Hardcastle family has lived for many years in a mansion on Forgetmenot Hill. However there are rumours that the present Lord Hardcastle intends to restore his ancestral home to its former glory.

Lady Euginia Astoria FitzSimmons-Hardcastle (she/her): Estranged wife of Lord Hardcastle, she has lived in seclusion in a cottage on the grounds of Museford manor for almost two decades, supposedly in mourning, though no visitors or reporters have seen her since she retired from public view.