Newcastle Coin Comes Home

Believe it or not, from the 1130s to 1307, Newcastle-upon-Tyne was home, periodically, to a Royal Mint. The institution came and went as the need arose, its on-off temporary nature dictated, no doubt, by the undulating relations with the Scots and the occasional need for a northern financial base during border military campaigns.

Being a fledgling town at the time, there can be no doubt that the mint (and any associated 'financial exchange') would have been located within the safe confines of the castle precincts close to the keep. The coins produced were pennies and half pennies (and the occasional farthing), and of silver or silver-alloy composition. They were ‘hammered’ using dies ... and you can still pick them up at auction or on eBay.

Which is precisely what I did a while back, and here it is:

What we have here, then, is an Edward I silver penny from the Newcastle mint, dating to 1300-07. The words VILL NOV’CASTRI can be made out on the reverse side (right). It is tiny little item, at about 16mm in diameter. Kinda neat, though.

I acquired this in the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic, and sat admiring it in my office for months unable to share it with anyone. My wife was distinctly unimpressed, for sure, and the only person who I thought may be interested was my mate, Andy. Now I have met Andy most Friday evenings for a few beers in central Newcastle for the best part of forty years, but we hardly saw each other during Covid. So when things started opening up again a few weeks ago, we couldn't wait to get back into our old routine.

Andy and I have always liked to vary our nights out a bit. Sometimes we'd start at The Strawberry and hang around the top end of the town; we might decide to kick off at The Bacchus, and hang around the High Bridge area. The Central Station area would be a regular haunt. Sometimes we'd start at The Five Swans; there'll be odd nights down the Ouseburn, too; and very occasionally we'd venture further afield into the near suburbs.

Then Andy suggested a place we hadn't been to in a while: the Quayside. But we'd begin at The Bridge Hotel, then pick our way (carefully) down Castle Stairs and onward to such places as The Red House, The Bridge Tavern and, of course, The Crown Posada. You get the idea.

And this was the moment I'd been waiting two years for: I will take the coin along to impress him ... unveiling it pretty much on the very spot upon which it was 'hammered' over 700 years before. Though we don't know exactly where in the Castle Garth it came into existence, it couldn't have been more than twenty yards or so away from our seat in The Bridge.

Andy was moderately impressed (or at least he very kindly pretended to be), and the moment soon passed. I carefully placed the delicate relic back in the recesses of my wallet, we drank up, and moved on toward the top of Castle Stairs. Newcastle's tiny wee silver penny had finally returned home to its birthplace, though there had been little in the way of fanfare. I would love to know which corners of the kingdom it has visited in the intervening seven centuries.

OK, then, so it wasn't such a big deal to anyone but me. However, as the following Friday evening loomed, Andy suggested we start the next session at The Bacchus. "Oh," I exclaimed, "I've got a fascinating little historical story about that place, too."

He could hardly wait. Ahem.

Tune in soon for the next instalment.

P.S. You can learn more about the Newcastle Mint in my book Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Fragments of the Past, vol.1 in the left-hand column. If you want to slyly avoid buying the same, the full article is actually viewable in the Amazon preview.