A DISUSED factory which used to bottle the Queen’s favourite water in Colwall could soon be converted into a three-storey block of retirement flats.

Developers have submitted plans to Herefordshire Council to build 26 retirement flats on the old Malvern Water bottling site off Walwyn Road.

The scheme also includes the construction of five terraced houses with 11 car parking spaces and a single storey outbuilding for waste, cycle and tool storage.

The bottling works at Colwall were the longest continuous bottling facility around the Malvern Hills until it closed in 2010.

It was built by Schweppes in 1892 next to the railway line so that empty bottles could be easily transported to the site and full bottles easily taken away.

Malvern Water was a favourite of the Royal Family for more than 400 years, after Queen Elizabeth I drank it for its purported medicinal value. Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin reportedly travelled to the town to drink the water and the Queen was said to take supplies of bottled Malvern Water with her on her travels abroad.

Coca-Cola took over the bottling at Colwall and the Schweppes Malvern Water brand in 1987 and shipped the water until the plants closure.