The Mint is the oldest surviving public building in Sydney’s CBD. Along with old Parliament House and the Hyde Park Barracks, this is one of the more significant historic buildings you will see if you walk along Macquarie St.
Entry is free but it is only a quick visit and there is not a lot to see.
There are some remnants and bits of machinery in the courtyard and rear buildings, an old coin press, a penny press to make your own coins and some information about the building’s past.
Overall, it is short on artefacts and exhibits. The main point of interest is the architecture itself.
Would I recommend it if you had to pay? Not really, but as it is free and happens to be right next door to the Hyde Park Barracks, it is worth wandering through.
Curiously it was originally known as ‘the Rum Hospital’. It was built as a hospital for convicts but the name has stuck because the building was paid for entirely in rum licences. It cost about 45,000 gallons of rum.
This strange method of payment came about because Governor Macquarie was short of funds and Britain was refusing to bankroll any more projects.
The enterprising Macquarie thrashed out a deal with a couple of rum merchants and a surgeon. In exchange for constructing the building, Macquarie granted them a monopoly on the import of rum to the colony. Unfortunately (and probably not surprisingly) the work was shoddy and the building never served its purpose very well.
In 1855, the hospital was converted into a Mint. Australia was in the throes of a gold rush and the colony was awash with large amounts of unrefined gold. Regulation and control was needed. Nuggets, bags of gold dust and bullion were brought here and where it was processed into coins. It continued to operate until 1926 when it was finally closed down and was used instead for various governmental offices.
Today, it houses the headquarters of the NSW Museums of History group, the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, and a cafe. If you are short of time, you can skip it but if you are in the area, it is a interesting and quick little diversion.