u3a Visit to Royal Mint and Rhondda Valley Mining Experience

Well! she did it again, a glorious weather day for the outing.

The coach was an Executive version which was lovely and comfortable, and although we left on time, an unannounced closure of Shilton Road meant a rather convoluted route to get to the A40. That was the least of our traffic problems. More roadworks by the Frogmill and more at the Balloon Roundabout. After getting to the M5 all was well, and we made good time but were 35 minutes late for our booked time at the Royal Mint.

The staff at the mint were great they pulled out all the stops and managed to fit us all in.

The visit was most interesting. The story of coin making in England goes back to the time of King Alfred the Great when he introduced a unified coinage. Over the years there were lots of mints in England causing some chaos. Edward Longshanks changed all that in 1279 by having just one mint, and that in the Tower of London. Slowly it ran out of the space needed and moved to a specially built mint on Tower Hill in 1810, and eventually Llantrisant in 1960.

Over the years the mint has provided coins to over three hundred other nations and all their flags adorn the manufacturing hall.

Since Covid there has been many cutbacks and coins now are only made for UK use.

We had the chance of stamping a coin for ourselves, and on this day, it was a 50 Pence piece with a Red Arrows emblem on the obverse. Don’t ask the cost (it was more than 50p).

We moved on to the Lewis Merthyr Colliery in the Rhondda Valley which was amazing.

We had a tour of all the old mine workings and machinery still above ground, and then a trip through the underground experience. The visual aids were outstanding.

The guides were all ex-miners which despite their accents were easily understood, very helpful and answered all our questions. One surprising fact is that the use of Canaries to warn of harmful gas, was not phased out until 1986.

It turns out that we still have available under our feet over 200 years, worth of good steam coal to keep the whole of UK running at the rate we used coal in the mid-1950’s.

We were all given a small gift when we left, a small token showing our miners lamp was present and correct.

The journey home was quite swift, and I think everyone was well pleased with a grand day out.

A great lifelong learning day!

Thanks, Pam for arranging this and many other trips. Henry

Royal Mint