Abstract
The Melbourne branch of the Royal Mint officially opened in 1872. Built on a site that had previously accommodated Melbourne’s original Exhibition Hall, the complex comprised the extant Administration Building and flanking Guardhouses and substantial “operative departments” to the rear. The latter were demolished in the early 1970s but recent investigations have revealed that substantial remains survive. This paper discusses our new appreciation of the Mint’s archaeology – one of an increasing number of Melbourne archaeological sites where subsurface deposits are supplementing our knowledge of places long acknowledged for the importance of their built heritage. The remains reveal important evidence relating to the minting process and responses to industrial urban air pollution in the nineteenth century.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to the staff at the Working Heritage - the State-government-appointed committee of management responsible for the site, and especially Executive Officer Ross Turnbull, for commissioning and supporting the investigations which have yielded much of the above information. The works were undertaken through a partnership between Context and AHMS (now Extent Heritage). Thanks also to Jeremy Smith of Heritage Victoria for his sound advice and curatorial oversight of the works, and to Geoff Hewitt for providing relevant information – especially in relation to Bibb’s map of ca. 1854, and for suggestions in relation to interpretation and the content of this article.
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Travers, I. The Other Side of the Coin: Subsurface Deposits at the Former Royal Melbourne Mint. Int J Histor Archaeol 22, 147–166 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-017-0421-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-017-0421-6