The Horndon mint was an Anglo-Saxon mint

Mint (coin)

A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...

 established at Horndon-on-the-Hill

Horndon-on-the-Hill

Horndon-on-the-Hill is a village and Church of England parish in the unitary authority of Thurrock. It is about a mile northwest of Stanford le Hope and about two miles northeast of Orsett - from 1894, it was part of the Orsett Rural District....

 in Thurrock

Thurrock

Thurrock is a unitary authority with borough status in the English ceremonial county of Essex. It is part of the London commuter belt and an area of regeneration within the Thames Gateway redevelopment zone. The local authority is Thurrock Council....

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

. It is known from a single coin of the reign of Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....

.

The only surviving example of a coin from the Horndon mint was among the hoard of coins found in the 18th century in a basement near St Mary Hill church

St Mary-at-Hill

St. Mary-at-Hill is a Church of England church on Lovat Lane, a cobbled street off Eastcheap in the ward of Billingsgate, London, England. Rebuilt many times, St Mary-at-Hill was originally founded in the 12th Century, where it was first known as "St. Mary de Hull" or " St...

, in the ward of Billingsgate

Billingsgate

Billingsgate is a small ward in the south-east of the City of London, lying on the north bank of the River Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge...

, London, England. The coin is described as being of the sovereign/martlet type, with the head of the sovereign and a martlet

Martlet

A martlet is a heraldic charge depicting a stylized bird with short tufts of feathers in the place of legs...

 mint mark

Mint mark

A mint mark is an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced.-History:Mint marks were first developed to locate a problem. If a coin was underweight, or overweight, the mint mark would immediately tell where the coin was minted, and the problem could be located and fixed...

; it was minted between 1056 and 1059. It bears the inscription Dudinc on Hornidune on the reverse. Hornidune is the earliest recorded form of Horndon, which appears in Domesday as Horniduna.

The moneyer, Dudinc, has the same name as someone striking coins in London for Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot was King of England from 1037 to 1040. His cognomen "Harefoot" referred to his speed, and the skill of his huntsmanship. He was the son of Cnut the Great, king of England, Denmark, and Norway by Ælfgifu of Northampton...

 and Edward the Confessor. There is an "almost inescapable" conclusion that they were the same man.

From the reign of King Edgar onwards many mints were established to meet the need for new coins when the older ones were withdrawn. This happened regularly, partly to counteract inflation, but also to provide income to the king.

The existence of a mint at Horndon is described by Frank Stenton

Frank Stenton

Sir Frank Merry Stenton was a 20th century historian of Anglo-Saxon England, and president of the Royal Historical Society . He was the author of Anglo-Saxon England, a volume of the Oxford History of England, first published in 1943 and widely considered a classic history of the period...

 as signifying "a claim to be regarded as a borough" and Horndon was noted as an Anglo-Saxon town by Aston and Bond based on possession of a mint. A number of small mints were established during the reign of Edward the Confessor, but the choice of Horndon which was an "undistinguished village" is not obvious. Sydney suggests that the solution may be that the manor of Horndon was under the influence of Robert FitzWimarc

Robert FitzWimarc

Robert FitzWimarc was a kinsman of both Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy, and was present at Edward's death bed....

and his son Swein of Essex, a powerful and ambitious local family.