Sleaford Museum reveals the story of town’s fizzy factory that made it to the USA

The partnership and family business of Lee and Green, ‘Makers of High-class Mineral Waters’, created this unique local factory on an island in the River Slea, off Carre Street.

George Lee came to Helpringham from Boston in 1871 as a farming student. There he met Charles Green, whose sister Sarah married George in 1883, living initially in the Old White Hart, Southgate, and then later at 42, Boston Road.

After outbreaks of cholera and smallpox in the 1850s and 1870s, the town had a need for safe, clean water. As a result, Sleaford Waterworks was founded in 1879. Lee and Green used this to start an aerated water manufacturer in 1881 which sold safe bottled water, sourced from Boiling Wells Springs. The Temperance Society strongly approved, too.

Lee and Green also had factories in Skegness, Boston, Spalding, Bourne and even in the USA.

Ginger beer was also produced in stoneware bottles, which are now very collectable.

Both families were very generous benefactors to the community.

Trading ceased around 1938 and in 1951 the building was purchased by Holland Brothers Motors.

The factory building has since been demolished and the ‘island’ now houses Berkeley Court flats, built in 1980, with an attractive metal sculpture representing the sails of the barges which travelled up the navigation.