Gold and silver nanoclusters embedded in MgO were created by means of ion implantation of 1.0 MeV Au or 600 keV Ag ions to a dose of 10(16) cm(-2) into single crystals of MgO(1 0 0) and subsequent annealing at 1473 K for a period of 22 h. The structural properties of the nanoclusters were characterised by optical absorption spectroscopy (OAS), high-resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD) and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM). Nanocluster sizes are estimated using three different methods: using the Doyle formula for the broadening of the optical absorption peak associated with Mie plasmon resonance; using the Scherrer formula for the broadening of the Au and A- XRD peaks, and from direct observation of TEM images. For the Au clusters, the methods are in excellent agreement with mean cluster sizes of 4-5 nm. For the Ag clusters, the optical Doyle method yields a mean nanocluster size of 5 nm while the XRD and XTEM methods yield 10-11 nm. The XRD and XTEM results reveal a cube-on-cube orientation relationship of the Au and Ag nanoclusters with respect to the MgO matrix.