It is essentially a museum. I think curiosity was the incentive for our visit here. The reality is short guided tour which concentrates on and explains the pressing of the images on coins and medal of all sorts and countries. The brief view of a very small part of the factory does little to enhance the visit as there is little to observe and no mention of the metallurgy which must be an important part of the process. The exhibits are well done but I expected more of the guided portion of the visit. It was delivered by a pleasant young lady, clearly long practiced, working on autopilot without much feel or empathy for her audience and oozing an air of haste to get us quickly processed and passed through to the large exhibit space. The saving grace is that it is not that expensive at around £12.50 (perhaps £10.00 would be better for what you get). What I was impressed by was the café which I cannot praise enough. It was efficient, outstanding value and providing lovely food albeit for a very limited menu. If you are in the area, yes, by all means visit but it is not worth a long “trek”.

The Royal Mint VIP Tour- I visited with my dad because he collects some of the coins. I didn’t know much about The Royal Mint but now I do!

You don’t have to be a collector to have an amazing time at this place. I was expecting a long lecture or sales pitch almost but it was nothing like that at all.

We were treated to hot drinks, snacks, a gorgeous lunch spread with blue cheese and Brie (vegetarian and vegan options were also available), a miniature afternoon tea with a selection of cakes and little gifts and souvenirs to take home at the end too.

It begun with a brief summary of the history of The Royal Mint, we then had one of the individuals who designs the actual coins come to explain his thought process and some of the symbolic meanings to his designs. He explained his inspiration and pointed out some of the details you’d never usually notice.

We then moved through to the actual tour itself where we were shown the fascinating stages behind the coin making process. We were given opportunity to make our own coins and ask as many questions as we liked.

The entire day was incredibly well put together. Super well organised, continuously interactive and genuinely flawless for me. The group was small and intimate so it felt like they could tailor the day to us and everyone was super engaging.

For several days after I found myself continuously telling people random facts about our coins, foreign currency, gold bars, the history of london, olympic medals …

I would absolutely reccomend!