Royal Mint Court
Royal Mint Court
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Royal Mint Court

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Royal Mint Court

Royal Mint Court, formerly known as Eastminster, is a building complex in Tower Hamlets. It is located in front of the Tower Bridge and is close to the City of London financial district. The site was the home of the Royal Mint from 1809 until 1967 and was earlier the site of a Cistercian abbey, built in 1348 and known in its time as Eastminster. Eastminster's foundations are relatively well preserved and visible in the partially open basement of the site. In May 2018, the site was sold to China to be used for their new London embassy.

After the dissolution of the monasteries, the 5.5 acre (2 hectare) property was used as a victualling yard for the Royal Navy, then as a tobacco warehouse, before becoming a mint in 1809. After the mint relocated, the site was redeveloped in 1987 by the Crown Estate Commissioners with a new office and residential block added to the complex alongside the two remaining Grade II listed mint buildings. The 100 residential homes were leasehold properties and Queen Elizabeth II was the Superior Landlord.

In 2017, Royal Mint Court was again set to be redeveloped with plans for a new office, shopping and leisure complex. Planning permission was granted in July 2016. As the freeholder, China became the superior landlord over the 100 leasehold homes. David Chipperfield was appointed as the architect for development of the site in 2020.

During the Black Death in 1349 the site became a plague cemetery known as the Churchyard of the Holy Trinity, and three mass burial trenches and 14 grave rows were dug alongside a small chapel. During excavation of the site between 1986 and 1988 the remains of 762 bodies were recovered, as well as a number of belt buckles and two hoards of coins. On 20 March 1350 Edward III granted the site to the Cistercian order for the building of a new chapel named the Royal Free Chapel of St Mary Graces on Tower Hill, which eventually became the Abbey of St. Mary de Graces; the monastery was known as Eastminster, or sometimes New Abbey. Built to house just ten monks and an abbot, the abbey was the last Cistercian foundation in England to be built before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1538 St Mary Graces was surrendered to the Crown and sold to Sir Arthur Darcy, who demolished part of the monastery buildings and lived there until his death in 1560. The site was then sold back to the Crown; it was a victualling yard for the Royal Navy until 1739, when the navy moved to new premises in Deptford.

The Royal Mint, previously housed in the Tower of London, moved to the site between 1806 and 1811, and the Mint's new buildings were finished by the end of 1809. The main building, designed by James Johnson and completed by Robert Smirke, contained apartments for the Deputy Master of the Mint, the Assay Master, and the Provost of the Moneyers as well as bullion stores and the Mint Office. In addition to the main building, the site included two gatehouses, buildings housing machinery, and dwelling houses for officers and staff. A boundary wall surrounded the site. A narrow alley known as the Military Way ran along the inside of the wall, patrolled by the Royal Mint's military guard. In the 1880s the machinery buildings were reconstructed and extended, and there was further rebuilding at the turn of the century. By the 1960s little of the original mint remained apart from the Smirke building and gatehouses.

In 1848, a royal commission examined the efficiency of the Royal Mint and recommended that the Royal Mint separate the process of refining gold and striking gold coins and that refining be leased to an agency that was external to the Royal Mint. Anthony de Rothschild (1810-1876) was very enthusiastic about the opportunity to manage the gold refinery and on 26 January 1852 he wrote to the Deputy Master of the Mint of his readiness to 'execute the Lease for the Refinery. On 3 February 1852, a Lease for the buildings and equipment was sanctioned and the Royal Mint Refinery became part of Rothschild's London businesses' interests for over a century'. Prior to receiving the Lease, the Rothschilds had a long history of gold trading in Paris and London and in 1815 they famously provided the Duke of Wellington with gold coins to pay his soldiers prior to the Battle of Waterloo. In 1825, the Rothschilds came to the aid of the Bank of England when a number of English banks collapsed causing a run on the Bank. Using family connections, they were able to purchase gold from European banks.

The Royal Mint Refinery proved to be a huge success for the Rothschilds as new gold finds in California and Australia brought a wave of new supplies of gold into London in the 1850s. By the 1890s the operations were so successful that they were able to acquire the freehold of the Royal Mint Refinery, which had previously been leased to them. They also purchased freehold properties on Royal Mint Street and other locations close to the refinery and these were provided as housing for workers and their families. In 1894, Alfred de Rothschild acquired a plot of freehold land in Cartwright Street from the Metropolitan Board of Works on the understanding it would be kept for at least eighty years 'Artisans Dwellings' to accommodate 100 workmen at the refinery.

Rothschild, through its connection to the refinery, gained access to and control over British Empire gold, which in 1914 accounted for 70 per cent. of world output; the majority of which was shipped to London and treated at the Rothschild refinery. Operations continued through the first and second world wars until the 1960s when the refinery was no longer viable and in 1965 the copper foil plant was sold to Clevite followed two years later by the sale of the entire business to Engelhard Industries Limited. In November 1968, the last Rothschild employee of the refinery left the building and closed the gate on 19 Royal Mint Street.

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