The Malvern Spa Association is a non-profit making, community organisation that was founded in 1998 to “conserve protect and restore the Springs, Wells, Spouts and Fountains of the Malvern Hills”. To do this we have helped to raise over £270,000 so far in partnership with the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), for the Malvern Heritage Project – Springs Restoration. We aim to restore up to eighteen spring water sites by 2008, including St Ann`s Well, completed last year and the Clock Tower our current restoration site.
Of these monies the MSA receive up to £1,200 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, specifically to enable us to print three MSA Newsletters annually until March 2008, in order to help fulfill the second of our aims, “To promote the study, conservation, development and awareness of the Springs, Spouts, Fountains and Wells of the Malvern Hills and Great Malvern as a Spa Town”. The MSA mail these Newsletters to over 200 people – to all our voluntary Well Wardens and Well Dressers, to the press, to other interested parties and to about 100 MSA members who pay an annual fee of £10. We also publish them on this website and provide some free copies of the latest MSA News at the T.I. Centre in Great Malvern and at St Ann`s Well.
We organise a series of fascinating public evening events and talks throughout the year as well as the popular annual MSA May Day Well Dressing, which had a record 28 water sites dressed last year by about 85 people from the local community. This event can be viewed for four days, beginning on the weekend closest to 1st May each year. It attracts many visitors to the springs, increasing public awareness of Malvern`s unique water heritage and the dilapidated state of many sites. For several years, a grant to the MSA of up to £250 from the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty office has paid for the costs and prizes for this event, along with our stand in Priory Park on the Saturday as part of Malvern’s May Day Festival.
At present we rely on MSA membership fees to cover most of our day to day running costs, but we would like to do more projects, so please help support our activities by joining the Association today.