Fissures in the rock retain rain water, which slowly permeates through, escaping at the springs.

[4][5] Schweppes began bottling the water on a commercial scale in 1850 and it was first offered for sale at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

[7][8] In 1890 Schweppes moved away from Holywell, entered into a contract with a Colwall family, and built a bottling plant in the village in 1892.

In 1987 Malvern gained official EU status as a natural mineral water, a mark of purity and quality.

However, in spite of regular quality analysis,[20] Malvern's reputation for purity suffered a blow when the rock that filters the water dried out during 2006, allowing the water from heavy storms to flow through it too quickly for the natural filtering process to take place efficiently.

[21] Consequently, the labels were changed from: the original English mineral water to read the original English water[3] In 1998, Coca-Cola Schweppes recalled stocks of carbonated Malvern Water due to traces of benzene found in the carbon dioxide delivered to the bottling plants from the Terra Nitrogen Company near Bristol, which distributes the gas to carbonated drinks manufacturers.

[23] Queen Elizabeth I drank it in public in the 16th century; in 1558 she accorded John Hornyold, a Catholic bishop and lord of the manor, the right to use the land under the condition that travellers and pilgrims continued to be able to draw water from the Holy Well spring.