Franklin's Mineral Water

Franklin's Mineral Water was bottled for a century in what had been the silk mill building at the western end of the High Street. The silk mill had been built and operated by Thomas Rock Shute, the proprietor of the much larger Rookery mill in Watford and another at Chesham. It was an important employer in this small town, although labour came also from both local and from London children. Steam powered from the start, it may have been on the same site as an earlier silk mill, but the evidence for this is thin.

The story of the mill, and then of the Franklin's business which followed it, is told in Grace's Guide to British Industrial History, and by an excellent short book by Robert J. Franklin, the great-grandson of the founder of Franklin & Sons, which is available from that page.

The factory was closed in 1990 to make way for the Marks and Spencer food hall and a car park, and Franklins became part of the Unwins group and moved to a new site.