Coins have been struck in Britain for 2000 years but minting did not begin in earnest until the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the mid-seventh century. By the time of Aethelred II (978-1016) mint workshops had been established in more than 70 different towns, mostly in southern England.
In the twelfth century the London-based moneyers began to pool their resources and started to operate from a single location. Before the end of the thirteenth century they had taken up residence in the Tower of London, between the inner and outer walls, and a properly instituted mint had been formed.
Almost all the nation's coinage was minted in the Tower from the mid-fourteenth century onwards although the episcopal mints of Canterbury, York and Durham survived until the reign of Henry VIII.
Machinery was introduced to the Paris mint in the mid-sixteenth century butw the primitive method of coining money with hand-held tools was not replaced in the Tower until rolling mills and screw presses were installed more than 100 years later. Screw presses, which could strike up to 30 coins a minute, were operated by men heaving on two horizontal arms loaded with weighted ends. The unenviable task of some workmen was to sit at the base of the machine flicking struck coins away and setting fresh blanks in place.