The mineral water industry

Water from Bourne's underground springs has been famous for centuries and was even being exported 300 years ago. The Stamford Mercury reported on 13th August 1724 that a list of goods imported into London the previous week included 129 bottles of Bourne water from Holland, presumably being brought back to this country after being sold on the Continent.

But it was enterprising businessmen during Victorian times who realised that Bourne's water was an asset to be exploited and were soon marketing the abundant natural supplies that were available under the town on a very large scale. In 1845, Mr. Robert Mason Mills purchased a chemist and druggist's shop in West Street and in 1864 began the bottling of aerated mineral water in a factory behind the premises under the name of R M Mills & Co., a name that continued in use until 1934 when it became Mills Bourne Waters. 

Water for the bottling and aeration process was also drawn from a borehole that had been sunk in North Road by the newly-formed Bourne Waterworks Company in 1856 by natural artesian pressure and the company, Bourne Waters, was given a seal of approval when it was granted a Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria's son, HRH the Duke of Connaught. 

The business continued until 1878 when Mr Thomas Moore Baxter, who was born in Wisbech but had practised as a chemist in Brighton, bought the chemist's shop and on the death of Mr Mills in 1904, he also took over the aerated water business but retained the name of R M Mills and Company. 

He had married Mr Mills' only daughter Emily and their son Mr Cyril Baxter eventually joined the company. In the early years of this century, the firm was manufacturing a dozen aerated beverages using flavouring extracts from various roots and herbs and special medicinal waters were also being made from doctors' prescriptions. When Thomas Baxter died in 1920, his obituary notice in the local newspaper emphasised that the firm's aerated waters were still widely popular, even at royal tables. 

Cyril Baxter succeeded his father in running the business but owing to ill health, he took Mr Percy Dawson into partnership, a man who had been with the firm since 1921. By 1934, the mineral water department became a limited company trading as Mills Bourne Waters Ltd. Table waters from the town were advertised as "the purest in England from an artesian spring of great depth" and supplies were despatched by horse and trailer from a depot in South Street which is now a public car park, although there were also deliveries by the company's own motor vehicle. 

Another firm to bottle water was Lee and Green Ltd who set up a bottling plant at the Old Theatre premises in Abbey Road around 1894 (pictured below). Their water was drawn from a bore on the premises that was almost 100 feet deep and one of their advertisements from the turn of the century proclaimed: "As the beauties of nature appeal to the eye, so the exquisite flavour of Lee and Green's Dry Ginger Ale charms the palate".

Lee & Green were originally founded in Sleaford but soon had factories in not only Bourne but also Spalding, Skegness, Boston and an office in Syracuse, USA, becoming a limited company in 1902 with Sir John Gleed as chairman. In 1901, the Old Theatre was partly rebuilt and the new building marked with a stone "L & G 1901". An additional bore was sunk in 1905 at the Bourne plant to supply extra water to meet the demand and the business remained open until June 1934 when the manufacture of mineral waters ceased. The premises were sold to the agricultural engineer W M Friend and then after a spell as a builder's merchants, the buildings were demolished in  February 1989 to make way for the town's new off street market place and adjacent car parking area but since those days of high water production and distribution, many of the company's old bottles have been dug up in gardens and building sites around the town.

Bottles used by the Lee & Green company for the distribution of their product on display in the Heritage Centre at Baldock's Mill, Bourne.

Several other boreholes were sunk at various places around Bourne, particularly in those areas where users were having difficulties and some of these were sunk by private individuals. In August 1887, following complaints about the inadequacy of the supply, a boring was made in the yard at the rear of the Bull Hotel (now the Burghley Arms), reaching a depth of 93ft 2in and subsequently producing water at the rate of 170 gallons a minute. The operation was carried out by the local blacksmith Mr Thomas Nowell at a cost of £30. In September that year, a borehole was also drilled on Mr Henry Goodyear's property in the Austerby where it reached a depth of 104ft., despite some technical difficulties with the equipment caused when it reached a layer of solid rock.

The Cake Kabin at No 65 Abbey Road was formerly the water bottling plant run by the company W U B & H E Smith, the third firm to market Bourne's pure water after R M Mills & Co and Lee & Green Ltd. They followed E W Beckett (pre-1876) and Henry Palmer & Co when the business was known as the Steam Mineral Water Works.

The plant was established around 1904 when the premises were known as the Old Abbey Road factory where the firm specialised in drinks such as American cream soda, lime juice and soda, ginger stout, seltzer, dandelion stout, stone ginger beer and ginger ale "in corked bottles" although all drinks were supplied in syphons when required. "The best in England - no order too large and none too small", boasted their advertising literature.

The business later became Smith and Co and was still in existence in 1913 although they did not survive long after the Great War and by 1931, one of the original partners H E Smith had become manager at Lee & Green's Old Theatre factory.

A reminder of E W Beckett's company came in 1959 when a bottle was turned up during ploughing at Wilsthorpe and was identified by the moulded lettering on it which said: "E W Beckett's Aerated Mineral Waters, Bourne, Lincolnshire." The bottle weighed 1 lb. 1 oz. and had the unusual appearance of a blunt end and could not therefore be stood up, a deliberate feature of the manufacturing process to ensure that the bottle was stored on its side to keep the cork moist, much as wine is kept today, for if the cork dried out and shrank, then the gas from the water would blow it out. The bottle is now on display at the Heritage Centre in South Street.