IT has been neatly folded and forgotten about in a Hampshire drawer.

But now the 232-year-old copy of the Hampshire Chronicle has been found and returned to the newspaper.

It is remarkably well-preserved for a paper produced when the Hampshire Chronicle had only been going for six years.

For decades it had been stored away at the homein Basingstoke of Muriel Pink, who recently died aged 97.

Her cousin Jennifer Peskett said the family had been clearing Miss Pink's house. “We are coming across lots of things in drawers and bureaux. They were a family of hoarders. There are books going back to the 1800s, grandfather clocks, a Prussian officer’s sword, the house is like a museum.

“We are quite happy for you to have it. We wouldn’t know what to do with it, than just put it in a cupboard for 30 years.”

Mrs Peskett said Muriel’s mother Annie Sillence was originally from Winchester. Her father was Julius Sillence, the deputy chief constable of Hampshire Constabulary at around the turn of the 20th century.

Muriel long retained an interest in the city. She continued t receive a copy of the Chronicle until two years ago. Her sister Edith worked for Winchester City Council until 1981.

Muriel will be remembered by many as the proprietor of Basingstoke Preparatory School in Richmond Road which she ran for more than 50 years until her retirement in 1981. She taught around 1,000 children.

The Hampshire Chronicle for Monday April 27 1778, cost three pence, quite expensive as newspapers were still heavily taxed at the time.

It contained a mixture of world, national regional and local news. There is a story about troops marching from Prussia to Silesia, plantation news from Jamaica and reports of diplomatic intrigues on the continent.

There is some local news including what sounds like a ‘love triangle’ that was heading for a potentially lethal duel. The paper reports the amicable settling of the dispute between Mr L and Mr W over a Miss K. M……n “as otherwise it might have been attended with some fatal consequences to one or other of the parties by foolishly following the dictates of passion in what the fashionable world falsely calls honour (paper’s italics).”

The Winchester coroner, Mr Lipscomb, presided over an inquest into the death of Stephen Stapely, 70, from Binsted near Alton who wandered into a wood and died of exposure due to the “inclemency of the weather.”

Other items included a grey hunter horse being sold for two guineas by Mr Ridge, of Kilmiston (sic), near Alresford.

The 800-acre Wheely Farm, near Warnford, which is still in existence, was available for let until the end of 1789.

The May cock-fighting takes place on May 12 at the Wheatsheaf Inn.

The trustees of the Winchester turnpike (a privately-funded road) will gather at the Chequers Inn on May 1.

A “commission of bankruptcy” has been taken out against John Molton, baker, dealer and chapman, of Botley.