BANK OF ENGLAND |
The central bank of the UK at the heart of London's financial district
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Front Facade
Bank of England Museum
Visitor Information |
The Bank of England Museum is open Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm. Entry is FREE.
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The Bank of England is the central bank of the UK and is at the heart of London’s financial district. The bank earned the nickname 'The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’, following a cartoon in 1797 by Britain’s first political cartoonist James Gilray.
The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street
depicting the bank as an old lady sitting on a chest full of gold,
wearing a dress made from £1 notes and preventing the Prime Minister
from getting at the gold!
Source WikiMedia (PD)
Did You Know?
The
Bank has had a monopoly on the issue of banknotes in England and Wales
since the early 20th century; it prints 5 million bank notes daily and
destroys a similar amount.
The Bank was founded in 1694
to provide King William III with much needed funds to finance a war
with the French. In return for a loan of £1.2M the bank was granted
with a royal charter to print notes and take deposits. This made the
Bank of England the world’s first privately owned national bank. As
well as providing banking services to the nation, the Bank of England
manages the UK's foreign exchange and gold reserves.
Figures and detail on the front facade
The
building you see before you dates back to 1734 and over the years,
various additions and extensions have grown the building to cover a
substantial area. For security reasons, the building is an island and
it has more space below ground than it does above.
Figure at the top of the building
The Bank of England Museum
tells the story of the bank including how it controlled Britain’s
finance during various wars, how it became one of the first
institutions to employ women and how the bank controls official
interest rates.
Inside the Bank of England Museum - many of the displays are interactive and fun for children
Photo © Bank of England Museum
Figures inside the museum, tell the Bank of England story
Photo © Bank of England Museum
Get to touch a bar of Gold in the museum!
Photo © Bank of England Museum
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