The Royal Mint Experience — Attraction in Llantrisant

The Royal Mint Experience, Wales Wednesday 4th April 2018

The factory was opened by the queen to start production in 1968 & the experience to the public in 2016.

Booking online is a prority as you have to book in for the tour, showing up isn't really an option as it's very popular, particularly during the school holidays. There is plenty of free allocated parking a short walk from the museum.

Set on a site of 35 acres, the tour shows you a small fraction of the operation of making coins. After going through security, very similar to that at airports, you are greeted by your tour guide in the film room, you watch a short film about the importance and production of coin currency, history etc. After this, the tour guide leads you to the factory where you are shown how each coin goes through each stage to become currency. No photos are allowed in this area, with a high level of security even phones/cameras are not allowed out on view. The tour lasts approximately 45 mins, you get to watch machines make the coins, not only does the factory make UK currency but does for many other countries too & is the leading royal mint in the world. The Royal Mint makes 90,000 coins every week!

Before leaving the high security, very secret factory, you can (at additional cost of £5) press your very own £2 coin, which really is just pressing a button & a staff member doing the rest. The last room hosts 1 million pounds in pound coins securely displayed, you are given the opportunity to have a photo taken with the million pounds, £££ which you can view & purchase in the gift shop on exit. The tour is fully accessible for all & is very informative, the tour guide was fantastic, especially with the children, getting them involved & hands on with learning the history & process.

The tour guide left us in the museum after concluding the tour of the factory. Very impressed with our tour guide, she knew every answer, she was clear & genuinely lovely, the tour was a great experience.

In the museum photos could be taken, full of the history it hosted a wide variety of activities, games for the children. The Royal Mint also press medals, so having family which served in the war this was very interesting. Not only do they press for other countries but make medals for events such as the Olympics aswell.

The gift shops is full of collectors items to purchase, many with high price tags. A variety of items to buy, from fridge magnets, chocolate to one off coins. This is where you can view & purchase your million pound photo if you had it taken during the tour, a great souverner. The gift shop could extend its merchandise in supporting the actual experience itself.

The average time spent at the experience is 2 hours, including the tour. There are accessible toilets which are clean. There is a large cafe on site serving hot & cold refreshments. Outdoor seating to the front of the building should you want to eat in the sun, smoke or eat own food.

As a family of 7; 5 of whom are children aged 2, 6, 9, 9 & 15, it was suitable and enjoyed by all. The tour was interesting and timely, reasonably priced & highly recommend.

A great opportunity & educational experience, amazing staff, great facilities & another...

The Royal Mint, the museum and food were mint!

I have a long history with the Royal Mint from it's founding to the modern day...

I was on the Island of Athelney in January of 878 having fled there with my old mate Alfred (Alfie to his friends) to avoid the angry mob of vikings led by Guthrum (All I said was their hats looked a "bit silly" and they invaded an entire country over it! Talk about drama queens).

Anyway, we were sat on the island, Alfie was cooking some gridle cakes (1/5 for his cakes. Bland, burnt and bone dry. Remember I'm the world's greatest food reviewing, green grocer wizard) when he turned to me and said,

"Bernie, when I retake this country, we're going to need a unified currency!" (Translated from old English for the ease of reading)

"Alfie," said I. "That is a mint idea!"

"I like that. I will call it the Royal Mint in honour of you!" Alfie declared.

Obviously the rest is history...

So, I was in the area of Llantrisant and decided to call in. Fortunately, the carpark was large enough for me to land my leopard print Helicopter.

I walked across the small bridge and into the compound of the mint. I had booked in for the morning tour of the facilities, and what a treat it was!

The tour guide was a very friendly, very informative and willing to take questions. The group wasn't massive about 12/14 of us in total. Needless to say my hat (a zebra skin pill box hat) was the fanciest hat on the tour.

We were guided through the buildings, shown the old coin presses, the new coin presses, hundreds of thousands of pounders worth of coins and gold. I saw a coin of my old mate Alfie. I saw coins of my ex, Elizabeth 1st (nice lady, bit heavy on the old lead face paint). It was a wonderful walk down memory lane. After an hour or so of browsing, I decided I was a little hungry. I had noticed to the right of the main entrance a lovely cafè.

I went to the counter and ordered the soup of the day, a bowl of beef stew and mash potatoes and a minted lamb burger (felt appropriate in the Royal Mint).

The food arrived and I was massively impressed.

The rich vegetable soup was home made. The portion size was gigantic! The bowl was filled to the brim and large enough to float a boat on!

The beef stew again, all home made was excellent! Masses of vegetables. Large tender chunks of beef. Lovely crusty rolls! Honestly it was very hard to fault! (If I was being very picky it needed a little salt. But that's just to my taste). Then I come to the minted lamb burger. WOWZER! It was absolutely gorgeous. Juicy and cooked perfectly. I couldn't fault it.

I left the mint and boarded my helicopter full and satisfied. If only my good mate Alfie could see it! Anyway onwards and upwards friends. I'm off to take part in a long bow contest, at the battle of Edington, I was a top marks man. It's been a while but I'm still a good shot. They don't call me Bullseye Bernard for nothing!

The Royal Mint 5/5 (Had a great time going down memory lane topped off by a great meal. My day out was...

What a superb experience!

I visited today to strike my own Brexit 50p coin. I bought a family package online which included entry for two adults, two kids, a hot lunch for everyone and two strikes.

The tour started with a security scan, an introduction to what the Mint is, how they work and their history. You're then taken on a factory tour where some mad employee started throwing pound coins at you and pouring handfuls of coins at the glass between you and the factory. So funny!

At the end of the tour, you visit a room with a press, a blank is loaded into the press and you hit the button to strike your coin which is then loaded into a presentation box and handed to you.

The staff are absolutely brilliant. They're ALL so helpful, friendly and always smiling. The food was delicious and the cakes were fresh and fluffy. The entire tour was a couple of hours but you felt looked after by dedicated staff the whole time!

The self-guided tour is interesting and there's a £400,000, 12.5kg block of gold on display for you to get your mitts on. The money flowing through and lying around (secured!!) that place is immense! They have at least £170,000 in coins on display inside the factory and £90,000,000 in storage at any time.

This is a really interesting and fascinating tour. It really opens your eyes about cash, the coins in circulation and the logistics into making this happen securely and safely.

Make sure you visit the shop and find you weight in gold. Their scales weigh you and work out what you'd be worth of your were gold. For the record, I'm worth £2,310,000. Now my wife can appreciate me that much more! 😃

We had an awesome day and I have to thank the staff for...