UK's 'most romantic village' launches love mission

An English village, dubbed the most romantic in the world, has launched a project to rediscover the history of Valentine's Day.

Residents of Lover, Wiltshire, who take the annual celebration very seriously, have decided to make a tapestry that traces the roots of 14 February back to Roman times.

The project is being carried out by the Lover Community Trust to mark its 10-year anniversary.

Nick Gibbs, from the trust, said he had the idea after hearing that the 900-year-old Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, was returning to the UK.

The tapestry timeline will cover the Roman Empire of Claudius II through to the Middle Ages and the Victorian period.

Gibbs said the project would also be influenced by 14th Century writer Geoffrey Chaucer.

Chaucer was largely credited with creating the association between Valentine's Day and romantic love through his 1380s poem The Parliament of Fowls, which imagined birds pairing off on 14 February.

The village is known for a unique, 50-year-old tradition called the Lover Valentine Post.

Thousands of sweethearts from every continent – even Antarctica – buy cards online from the village in order to have the Lover postmark stamped on them.

Volunteers then send the cards to recipients across the world.

The service was run for decades by the local Post Office until it closed in 2008.

The Lover Community Trust took on the job from 2016, and now runs a pop-up post office every year in the lead up to Valentine's Day.

Gibbs said: "The great thing is no matter wherever you are in the world you can go to our website look for a card, write your message and leave it to us."

He told BBC Radio Wiltshire the volunteer team is called "the Cupids and the Darlings".

Gibbs said the envelopes have a "beautifully adorned stamp" which is made in Lover.

Follow BBC Wiltshire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630.