Mystery love token puzzles historians

11:05am Tuesday 13th February 2007

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THE secret of a Valentine's puzzle has been solved by historians who discovered the rare love token among archives.

Experts at the Dorset History Centre spent weeks unravelling the mysteries of the Georgian paper puzzle to reveal a unique and complex marriage proposal.

Now staff at the Dorchester centre are hoping to solve another puzzle as to whether the complicated conundrum was enough to convince the recipient to marry its creator - a John Abbott.

History centre workers discovered the puzzle amidst a family's archive.

At first, no one could work out what the delicate-looking paper was.

It was folded flat and was covered in lines of verse and water coloured pictures that seemed to make no sense.

The object was too old to play with so an exact copy was made and staff spent hours trying to solve the puzzle.

Finally, they discovered that the paper folded into a three dimensional shape around which the random lines of verse turn into a poem and marriage proposal.

As the box is unfolded the verse and proposal becomes clear to reveal a space inside for a love token.

Katrina Legg, archivist at the history centre, added: "It's amazing that the puzzle survived at all but it is an absolute delight.

"It's a shame that we don't know whether or not the proposal was accepted.

"We are trying to find out but as we don't know where it comes from and with a name like John Abbott, which is not that unusual it would take time but it would be interesting to find out all the same."

The verse begins: 'In this inside sweet Tutle Dove / I write a Moral of my love.' And on the inside in states: 'If you deny my Loving Bride to be / I am berieved of all Felicity.' Rebecca Donnan, principal conservator at the history centre who made the discovery among items belonging to a Sherborne family, said: "I was looking through the family archive for a photograph when I came across the piece of paper.

"I immediately realised it was something very interesting and that it could be an early Valentine.

"I had some knowledge of early cards and realised that it was a mechanical object.

"We couldn't work out how it was supposed to work so we made an exact copy and it took us a long time to work it out.

"The staff took turns taking it home and finally we worked it out - there are dozens of folds that have to be made in order.

"Even now we are not quite sure that we've got it exactly right. It's not logical and we haven't found similar examples, although the basic laws of origami do apply."