From London with love - Moving the Royal Mint to a quiet Welsh village. PART 1

Choosing the Location

Tower Hill - London: circa 1830 SOURCE

Cramped, inefficiently laid out and with old equipment, just a few of the words used to describe the original Royal Mint site at Tower Hill. By the 1960s the Royal Mint at Tower Hill in London was no longer an ideal location and a complete revamp of the site was very much required. Rebuilding had been in prospect for some time but that was put on hold once it was announcement, in 1966, that Britain would adopt a new decimal currency. With its associated need for hundreds of millions of new coins, and an increase in productivity, it brought matters to a head.

Expansion was not really possible at Tower Hill and it was decided to find a new location outside of London, and by January 1967 more than 20 sites had been considered. This would then be reduced to a short list of seven and put forward for further discussions.

A few key proposed sites.

On this short list was Llantrisant an ancient Borough in South Wales, just a few miles from Cardiff. It was close enough to London to tempt existing staff to relocate, with plenty of space and a readily available workforce.

The staff from London visit the proposed new site.

In addition, it had the support of James Callaghan, who as Chancellor of the Exchequer was Master of the Mint and also an MP for Cardiff. He freely admitted that he did not care in which valley the Mint was located so long as it was a Welsh valley.

"The Chancellor told me of the possible site at Llantrisant and as soon as I heard of it I insisted on visiting it. Once I saw Llantrisant I told him this was the place for us."
Jack James, Deputy Master of the Royal Mint, 8 September 1967

construction beginning in earnest

Llantrisant was finally chosen and announced as the new site for the Royal Mint in April 1967. Clearance of the site began immediately after and by August of the same year, construction was fully under way.

The Deputy Master, Jack James, promised that "the new buildings rising from the Welsh countryside will for the first time for decades provide adequate space and permit the introduction of modern production plant and methods".

The Move to Llantrisant

From the hustle and bustle of London, to a quiet Welsh village

With decimalisation day fixed for 15 February 1971, the new Mint had to be operational as swiftly as possible. With the abundance of able bodied ex-miners available to do all th hard grafting, the site was cleared and work proceeded at a great pace.

The foundation stone was laid by James Callaghan in February 1968 and work progressed so quickly that the Mint was able to be opened by the Queen in December of that year. Production of decimal 1/2p, 1p and 2p pieces began at once, with Llantrisant producing over 1400 million coins in its first year of operation alone.

Liz being show around the new factory floor

In the early days, the Royal Mint at Llantrisant was dependent on the supply of blanks from Tower Hill and elsewhere. This changed in the July 1971, when Government approval was given for an additional building programme on site, to make the new Mint completely self-sufficient.

This encompassed a melting, rolling and blanking unit as well as the creation of laboratories, stores, maintenance workshops and an administration block. The first strip of metal was cast at Llantrisant in November 1974, and Phase II was completed by the summer of 1975.

Stock photo of coins being poured into a furnace at the Mint - SOURCE

Production in the Mint in London's Tower Hill was gradually wound down, and in November of 1975 the last coin was struck there. The old site was finally vacated at the end of 1980.

This brought an end to over 165yrs (1809-1975) of coin minting at Tower Hill, and the beginning of a new chapter of coin manufacturing here in Llantrisant.

I hope you enjoyed a little history of the processes involved in moving the Mint? If there's an interest, I'll cover the set up and current manufacturing practices in a future post.