Why the Bank of England museum is a one-of-a-kind
Where else in the country can you walk into a museum and without any guard present, lift a gold bar worth £1.2 million? Welcome to the Bank of England museum, .
Apart from the gold bar, a reminder of the 400,000 beneath you, the museum is a real treasure house, stretching from the Bank’s foundation in 1694 by William and Mary – the first governor was Robert Houblon by the way, although the idea for the foundation of the bank came from the Scotsman William Paterson – right up to today, with regular exhibitions of imaginative art, recycled notes and currently about bees’ relationship to money, and the surprisingly prevalent practise of honey fraud.
After the airport style security, don’t forget to look at the mosaics as you arrive in the foyer.
These are by the same Russian artist, Boris Anrep, who designed the National Gallery mosaics, and are all based on historic British coinage – the one behind security from Oliver Cromwell’s time, declaring Pax Quaeritur Bello, a rather Orwellian “Peace through War”.
The banking hall, redesigned to resemble the original 18th century legacy of the architect John Soane, resembles the Gringotts hall and includes architectural plans and early cheques and Royal declarations – including a speech from Charles II apologising for defaulting on his debts – leading up to its foundation. There are also interactive games for younger visitors showing for example the effects of monetary policy on inflation.
Bank of England’s treasures
Interestingly, when the Bank’s interior was demolished and remodelled in the 1930s, leaving only Soane’s curtain wall, the Architectural writer Pevsner labelled it “the greatest architectural crime, in Canada, of the 20th century.”
Moving through, you will see the original bank charter, a tally stick used as a record of debt (incidentally it was the burning of old tally sticks that led to the Houses of Parliament burning down in 1834).
The massive chest on display dates to its earliest days at Mercers’ Hall, and near it are examples of correspondence with George Washington, a satire on the ease of note forging which lead to hundreds of executions before security was tightened and records of the Bank’s possession of plantations with almost 600 enslaved Africans in the 1780s – a salutary reminder of the City’s history.
The rotunda contains the gold bar, as well as a display about Kenneth Grahame, the writer of the Wind in the Willows, who appears to have been bullied out of the bank after he confronted an armed robber.
Further sections talk about the current security measures, and show one of the infamous Operation Bernhard Nazi forged bank notes that were almost perfect – they forced Jewish concentration camp prisoners to create them.
Another display about gold itself includes the small bar presented to Elizabeth II on her coronation and then it moves onto the Big Bang, the Crash, Northern Rock, some of the famous subscribers and much more.
• The Bank of England museum is free to visit and open Monday to Friday 10-5, until 8pm the third Thursday of every month