Strangely, or perhaps not very strangely, there is a place in Britain where money has no value. It's called the Royal Mint, and it's situated in South Wales. The Mint stands behind high security fences. It is not open to tourists, but as a journalist, I was able to organise a visit. Tourists can visit the recent visitor centre, next door.

    In many ways, the Mint is a very odd place! As I walked round, I could see silver coins lying on the ground! Nobody stops to pick them up, they might as well be stones! Indeed, on the road outside the main building, there were coins squashed into the surface! Here the streets really are paved with money! Coins and banknotes are worthless!
    People who go into the Royal Mint, visitors and people who work there, are not allowed to take money in with them. They cannot take it out with them either! As a visitor, I had to leave all my money in a security locker, before I could enter. Inside the buildings, people must use special plastic coins!

    The Royal Mint has been making coins for over 1,100 years, since the year 886. It's one of the oldest factories in the world! For hundreds of years, the Mint belonged to the Kings of England. Today's King has nothing to do with it, except that his head appears on all new British coins.
    Until the 1960's, the Mint was in London, close to the Tower of London; but as it developed, the London site became too small. The Mint had to move  to a bigger factory in Llantrisant, in South Wales. Today it is among the biggest coin-making factories in the world, but things are changing.

  In the age of credit cards, people use fewer banknotes and fewer coins. In the 1980s, the British Royal Mint made coins for about 60 countries, including some European countries. But the last foreign coins were made in 2024. Now the Royal Mint only makes British coins - pounds, pennies, and special coins.
 A new activity is being developed too. The Mint now extracts gold from old unwanted electronic goods - like phones and computers. It's a very specialised job.... a part of the new "circular economy".

 

WORDS Mint: to mint means to create money, a mint is a place where the money is created. - fence: barrier - odd: strange - coins: metal money, usually round pieces - squashed: pushed, compressed - locker: box that can be locked - factory: industrial building - site: group of buildings, complex - fewer: a smaller number of - foreign: of / for other countries -  extract: take out of - goods: merchandise