A quaint old half-timbered house, with overhanging eaves and time-darkened red tiles, stands close to the Castle walls and opposite the Eastern Postern. This is the Mint House. now over six hundred years old, and one ot the most interesting buildings in the South of England. The site of the present structure is reputed to have been used as a Norman Mint as long ago as 1076 A.D. The Mint House was erected in 1342 A.D. to the size and shape as it now stands, but the interior was considerably altered in 1542 A.D. by Dr. Andrew Borde. then Court Physician to King Henry the Eighth. It contains 18 rooms, all rich in oak beams of good preservatiOn. one of these rooms being panelled with oak carvings of the Renaisance period. In 1548 King Edward the Sixth stayed here for the benefit of his health, and the bedroom which he used to occupy is still shown. Adjoining this is the room of Andrew Borde, the King's host, and it was from this window that Sir Harry Ralt leaped down on a September night in 1607, to meet his death from sword wounds after an unequal contest against five horsemen. On the site of the present house was a building used as far back as 1076 A.D. for minting coins, and presumed to have been connected — by a sub-terranean passage running beneath the Roman walls — with the earliest part of the Norman castle. Coins were struck here during the reigns of William the Conqueror, William Rufus, Henry the First, and King Stephen, over the period of 1076 to 1154 A.D., and it is believed that the Mint ceased operations soon after the accession of Henry the Second.
The Pevensey Mint is mentioned in the Domesday Book and four of the coins struck here are now exhibited in the British Museum, whilst a few others are scattered among provincial museums.