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Publication Account
Date 1951
Event ID 1097877
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1097877
85. The Mint, Cowgate.
The last in succession of five buildings utilised as the Royal Mint stood, until 1877, on the N. side of the Cowgate between South Gray's Close on the E. and Todrick's Wynd* on the W. It consisted of workshops, offices, and houses for officials, arranged about a courtyard and enclosed by a high, massive wall with a turret at the N.W. corner. The original entrance was by Todrick'sWynd. Wilson, who examined the building in 1847, gives a fairly detailed description (1), and Mrs. Stewart Smith reproduces a picture2 which shows the turret and the pend. A plan, prepared in 1871, is preserved in the Sasine Office, H.M. General Register House.
The building was begun in 1574 and was ready for use in 1581. The Mint was under the direction of an official called the "Master Cunzeor," a post at one time held by John Napier, the inventor of logarithms. In addition to the Mint's ordinary functions, its magnificent hall seems to have been in demand for weddings and banquets, at least in its earlier years; the fact that it was chosen for the banquet given by the Town to James VI and his bride in 1590 suggests that it was then the finest room in Edinburgh.
RCAHMS 1951.
(1) Memorials, ii, p. 131. (2) Historic Stones of Edinburgh, p. 178.
*Situated immediately E. of Blackfriars' Wynd, demolished soon after 1867.
