Description:In 1996 Channel 4's Time Team came to Birmingham and filmed their first programme devoted to industrial archaeology. They were nervous about working in the private gardens of suburban houses but the lure of discovering for the first time the remains of the once world famous Soho Manufactory and Mint was eventually irresistible. The key to the success of the programme was the detailed research that had been carried previously using the Soho collections in Birmingham Central Library. Only particular gardens promised results and only certain owners, understandably, were agreeable for them to be ‘turned over’ by Time Team. It was not possible to hop about and search elsewhere, if mistakes were made, as had happened in previous Time Team excavations in open countryside.
In the early twentieth century most of the site of the Manufactory had been buried under about 10m (33ft) of material and only the front part of the ‘principal building’ was available for excavation. A frontage to a small factory was opened up on west side South Road and the front wall of the building was discovered at the level of the original cellars. This was the first time that part of a Manufactory building had been seen since the early 1860s.
Most activity was, however, concentrated on the Soho Mint on the opposite side of South Rd. Part of the building erected in 1791 was located, but the most exciting trenches were those that uncovered the underground brick tunnel, which once contained a cast iron drive shaft (removed in 1850 prior to the demolition of the Mint). Driven by the third steam engine to be installed at the Mint, the drive shaft was laid in 1824-6 during its rebuilding under the direction of Matthew Robinson Boulton. According to records the drive shaft and tunnel measured 60m (196ft) in length and ran various machines including cutting out presses. In one garden the junction of the main tunnel with one that linked to the steam engine was sought and found. The former Latchet building, where once a type of transferable springy buckle had been made, was incorporated into the 1824-6 Mint. The cutting out room for blanks was placed in its centre at the end of the drive shaft. Parts of this building were excavated in two separate gardens.