# Hooper Struve LONDON water?



## xxfollyxx (Nov 14, 2010)

I happened by this bottle at a show today and I was wondering if anyone knows anything about it? I thought I got it at a decent price but I dont enough about foreign bottles to know its rarity or age(guessing 1870s?) so it was pretty much a shot in the dark.
 5 1/2" tall


 The front reads

TO H.M. THE QUEEN             
   HOOPER STRUVE & Co
      PALL MALL EAST
           LONDON​ and the rear reads sideways
&
     THE ROYAL 
      GERMAN
         SPA    
 BRIGHTON​ 
 (H.M. = Her Majesty I assume)


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## cyberdigger (Nov 14, 2010)

I quote one of my favorite Americans: "trust, but verify."

 ...Ð”Ð¾Ð²ÐµÑ€ÑÐ¹, Ð½Ð¾ Ð¿Ñ€Ð¾Ð²ÐµÑ€ÑÐ¹...


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## Blackglass (Nov 14, 2010)

Can't give you much help on this one but its in a very strange shape and size and is probably rare. Very nice looking indeed!


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## surfaceone (Nov 14, 2010)

Hey Travis,

 Beautiful color on that guy. I believe our British friends might call this a dumpy seltzer.






 "Queen's Park

 Photograph of the original facade of the spa
 From a private collection


 Recent photograph of the facade of the spa
 From a private collection

 History of the spa
 By Andrew Bradstreet
 In the early part of the nineteenth century there were spas all over Europe as they were highly fashionable. A problem for Brighton was that it lacked the natural water necessary for a spa. There was a natural spring and spa at St.Ann's Well Crescent Gardens in Hove but this was too far away for the 'fashionable folk' in Brighton. Frederick Struve, a research chemist from Saxony, had invented a machine that reproduced the characteristics of natural mineral water using chemicals. He believed there was enough trade in Brighton to set up an establishment and in 1825 Struve opened the pump room of his 'German Spa'.

 A choice of waters
 The 'Fashionable Chronicle' in the Brighton Gazette provides a description of the building: 'The building consists of a large handsome room fifty or sixty feet in length, and of proportionate breadth and height. A fine flight of steps lead to the noble saloon, on which are placed Ionic columns, supporting a portico in the purest Grecian taste. On the side of the Saloon opposite the entrance runs a counter, behind which are ranged cocks that supply different kinds of waters.' Customers could obtain the waters of Karlsbad, Kesselbrunnen in Bad Ems, Marienbad, Bad Pyrmont and other continental spas.

 Queueing for a cure
 The curative waters received considerable patronage from the upper classes. In the first season there were 333 subscribers to the spa and in 1835, ten years after opening, Struve obtained the patronage of King William IV. Struve consequently renamed it the 'Royal German Spa'. During the 1830s the spa reached the height of its popularity and had many distinguished visitors.  Struve maintained that most of his cures would have no immediate effect and that it would take about a month before his customers would  be restored to their full heath. The spa was open between May and November from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. One contemporary writer complained that the pump room was not big enough for the number of people using it and that the number of carriages waiting in the road down to the sea ran into three figures.

 From spa to nursery school
 By the 1850s the practice of taking waters fell out of fashion and the pump room closed. Struve was now producing bottled mineral water and fizzy drinks. In 1891 another soft drinks firm merged with Struve and called themselves Hooper Struve Ltd. They very successfully continued to manufacture drinks still using the 150 foot well sunk by Struve. Only in the Second World War did the spa stop production when it became a fire watching station and a gas-mask issuing station.

 In 1963 the company moved to larger premises, leaving the sa as a storage shed. The pump room became derelict and vandalized. The pump room was demolished in the mid 1970s but thanks to a long public campaign to save it, the spa's neo-classical faÃ§ade remains. The Royal Spa Nursery School was built on the factory site and opened in 1977. A fire started by vandals destroyed the modern building in 1985 but it was soon rebuilt. The Nursery School continues to this day on this site." All this & more, from.

 "Frederick Struve, a research chemist from Saxony, had invented a machine

  that reproduced the characteristics of natural mineral water using chemicals.

 He believed there was enough trade in Brighton to set up an establishment

 and in 1825 Struve opened the pump room of his 'German Spa'.

 In 1891 another soft drinks firm merged with Struve and called themselves

 Hooper Struve Ltd.

 They very successfully continued to manufacture

  drinks still using the 150 foot well sunk by Struve." 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	







 "Early Dr. Struve's Seltzer from

  The Royal German Spa Brighton

 the following advert from a Brighton Guide book c1885

 shows an amazing assortment of drinks available from

 Struve & Co."

 [IMAGE]http://www.brightonbottles.com/stuve%20ad.jpg[/IMAGE] From the excellent Brighton Bottles.


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## deepbluedigger (Nov 16, 2010)

Yup, surfaceone is spot-on. Dumpy seltzer. Nice bottle, and very collectable in the UK. That shape probably 1880s - 1900. Great looking bottle but I'm not sure of value: not a category I pay much attention to!


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## glass man (Nov 17, 2010)

BEAUTIFUL COLOR...COLOR IS WHAT I AM INTO!  JAMIE


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