The Winchester Coin Cabinet
The Winchester Coin Cabinet
Pierced silver penny of King Offa of Mercia by Lul, 792–96
Gold Angel of Charles I, London, 1641
Silver denarius by Lucius Hostilius Saserna, 48 BC
Gold aureus of Hadrian, Rome, 125-28
Gold Gallo-Belgic Stater, Ambiani tribe, Picardy, 80-50 BC
Copper halfpenny token, Robert Wright, Alfreton, 1668
Silver tetradrachm, Athens, 465-60 BC
Silver Shilling of Charles I, Pontefract Castle, 1648
Gold solidus of Constans II, Constantinople, 654-59
Silver penny of Harold II, Canterbury, 1066
Gold Fine sovereign of Mary I, London, 1553
White metal medal by Bennett of Sarum, c. 1860
Silver tetradrachm in the name of Alexander III, Macedonia, 275-70 BC
Silver denarius of Julius Caesar, Spain, 46-45 BC
Media credit Leeds University Library
The Winchester cabinet is a collection of over 3000 coins, medals and tokens. It was compiled by William Eyre who was an eighteenth-century sergeant-at-arms, an order of barristers that worked in the common-law courts. Eyre bequeathed the collection to Winchester Cathedral on his death in 1764 and it remained virtually untouched until it was purchased in 1954 by the University of Leeds.
The collection contains coins from the classical period to the mid-1700s, with one or two later editions. There is a strong focus on Greek and Roman, but included are British coins from the Iron Age to the eighteenth century, trade tokens, siege pieces and numerous medals. This online exhibition contains a selection of William Eyre’s coins to give an insight into the variety and quality of the collection.
The Winchester Cabinet is one of the most important parts of the Coin Collection, but its fabric is at risk from repeated handling. This short video, created as part of the Interdisciplinary Interventions in the Brotherton Special Collections project, presents the Cabinet in a novel way, bringing the coins to life and allowing them to speak for themselves. It is intended to demonstrate the potential for a large scale project with a fully interactive output.