WATER from a natural spring first discovered by Henry VI more than 500 years ago is now being bottled for the first time.

The king is said to have discovered the spring at the Bolton Hall Estate, Bolton-by-Bowland, in 1464. He was staying in the area following his defeat at the Battle of Hexham during the War of the Roses.

He commissioned a circular stone well and used it for bathing as well as a source of drinking water.

Now the ancient monument has been restored by the Bosonnet family and this week they started bottling the water at a new plant on the estate.

Last year Christopher Bosonnet, whose family took over the ownership of the Bolton-by-Bowland estate in 1866, sent some of the water for hydro-geology tests.

Contractors drilled into limestone bedrock near to the well to extract the water and then it was sent off for stringent laboratory tests where it was discovered that it had mineral qualities.

The 47-year-old said: “We discovered that the quality of the water was really good and then the only way forward was to start bottling it.”

A borehole dug 47 metres into the ground which extracts the water. It is then piped underground for one-mile to a plant where it is bottled and labelled as King Henry VI Spring Water.

Production of the water began this week and the estate have already secured contracts to supply a number of local businesses, including, the Spread Eagle in Sawley, Hindelinis Deli in Ribblesdale Park and Exchange Coffee Company in Clitheroe and Blackburn.

The father-of-one, who runs the company with his wife Joanne, received a loan worth thousands of pounds from the Lancashire County Council Rosebud Finance scheme for new businesses.

The firm now employs six people in the new plant which has been convert from a disused milking parlour.

Mr Bosonnet was a chartered surveyor with Anderton Bosonnet estate agents in Clitheroe, before deciding to leave in January last year to pursue other interests.