Bank of England | The Bank Job Was On!

The Bank of England were having an open day on Saturday, which I thought would make for an interesting tour. I was going to get there bright and early. As the saying goes the early bird catches the worm, but it was the weekend and who wants to get up at the crack of dawn.

I came out of Bank Station at around 10.30am, which is a 5 minute stroll to the Bank of England – the area was fairly quiet. In fact as I wandered along Threadneedle Street it was eerily quiet and then I turned onto Bartholomew Lane, where the entrance to the tour was located and this was where all the people were, waiting to get in – don’t you just love the street names?

The sun was shining,which makes queuing up less of a chore and much more enjoyable. As always I had come prepared with a chilled bottle of water, it is thirsty work standing in the sun. Thankfully the queue looked a lot worse that it actually was, it only took around 30 minutes and I was walking inside the Bank of England. The bank job was on and the fuckers had let me in the front door – just my dark sense of humour kicking in!

The Bank of England guided  tour, was going to include a 45 minute tour of normally inaccessible areas of the bank, as well as the museum, which is normally just open Monday to Friday. And just so you know the museum tour is free and if your in the area it is worth dropping in for a wee peek.

At the entrance to the bank there was a gatekeeper greeting those that entered the building, he was dressed in the traditional top hat, jacket and waistcoat. From the moment you enter the Bank of England you can smell the money rolling off the walls. The interior of the building is beautiful. The exterior walls are made from Portland Stone, and the interior walls are made of Hopton Wood stone, which is a cream coloured limestone. Many of London’s famous buildings are made from Portland Stone, I will be doing an article on this in the near future, so look out for it.

Our guide for the tour was a youngish looking girl employee of the museum who did a wonderful job of bringing the illustrious  history of the Bank to life.  She sure new her stuff. The taking of pictures was of course not allowed, which is a real bummer and I was talking about taking pictures of the Bank not the girl!

The first thing you notice as soon as you pass through the airport style security scanners and then through the doors into the bank proper, apart from the beautiful stone walls, is the amazing  mosaic floor, which took 10 years to lay. The mosaic floor was laid by a Russian, Boris Anrep, who’s work can also be seen in Westminster Cathedral and the National Gallery. A work of art is how I would describe the mosaic corridors.

The next thing blondie tour guide pointed out was the Statue of William III by Henry Cheere, which was commissioned by the bank when they moved to Threadneedle Street and was unvield on the 1 January 1735. It is seemingly worth £2 million, it beats me how something so ugly can be worth so much. If there is something that makes me feel nauseas its statues of Royalty and this one was no different.

In the main entrance to the bank, we were shown a model of the bank, what was interesting because it gave you an indication of how massive a building it was…fucking huge. If you have ever walked around the exterior of the Bank of England, you will be well aware of how big a building it is. When the Bank of England originally moved to Threadneedle Street in 1734 it was originally just 80 feet wide and 300 feet long. Today the ground the bank sits on covers over 3.5 acres.

We were next herded to look at  one hell of a long cantilever staircase. It went seven flights up and three flight down. I had a desire to walk up to the top,  just  for the hell of it, but the security guard who was watching over us, probably wouldn’t have been too pleased. At the bottom of the staircase a 2nd century Roman pavement uncovered during the rebuilding of the bank was laid. At this stage, I was desperate to know where the gold was kept, all I wanted was a couple of bars – hell the bank didn’t need them as much as I did!

My favourite part of the bank tour was the beautiful and relaxing Garden Court. When I seen this I thought what a great place to have your lunch and tea breaks. But Blondie soon shattered that illusion, when she said it was Governor Mervyn King’s private garden, he used it for himself and entertaining his cronies. A nice touch was the four mulberry trees, which are a reminder of the origins of paper money. Garden Court led into the Governor’s room of course, which was nothing special, apart from the view of the garden. There was however a nice painting by William Marlow, Ludgate Street from Ludgate Hill and an old writing table dating from 1795 that has been used by every Governor since.

We eventually made it to the Committee room, this is where the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee meet once a month. Just like the Governor’s Room, each of the doors were double doors, this was to prevent eves dropping. I wished I could be fly on the wall at their next meeting. Next up was the First Floor Ante Room, which had the feeling of one of those private gentleman clubs. It was full of 18th century furniture, with quite a few Chippendale’s, it had a nice feel to it. I could just imagine myself in their sinking a few Scottish Single Malts before I made a few important decisions regarding getting inflation under control.

The guided tour finished off, in the dining room, which looked like a good place to sit down for some fish and chips from the local takeaway. I wondered if the Governor ate  his supper off the Meissen china, I know I would if I was him. Also during the tour on one of the landings there was an amazing 16th century Flemish Tapestry presented to the bank from the Belgium’s, which is seemingly worth a small fortune.

For the me the tour ended  all too soon, it was an amazing building to get the chance to walk around and breathe in the history of the place.  We only got the chance to barely scratch the surface of the Bank of England, but it was definitely a worthwhile tour to be part of.

As Blondie was leading us to the Museum, she said the normal people that work in the Bank, have a much more mundane working environment than you would expect. And she wasn’t kidding, she pointed out a normal office, which looked as boring and bland as any other banks! I felt ill, just thinking about working in such a place.

In the museum, I would  finally get the chance to get my hands onto a real gold bar. I wondered how fast the security guard could run – how heavy was a bar of gold? There was no need to worry about such things, the gold bar was securely sealed in a protective case. I had to put my hand into the hole in order to touch and lift the gold bar, which was heavier than it looked. It weighed 2 stones and was worth £300,000.  I had a quick peek at the museum tour, which seemed fairly interesting. You could look at old bank notes, coins, learn about the banking system, inflation and watch and listen to various presentations. However the sun was shining and I had to go and top up my tan..!

Just a few days ago, I had the dream that finally got the ball rolling for my novel, which is slowly starting to take shape and will be set in and around London. Whilst I was in the banks Garden Court, a perfect setting came crashing into my mind as part of my books storyline. It is weird how my book is coming more to life every time I wander around this amazing and crazy city called London.

The Bank of England guided tour is something that I would thoroughly recommend getting yourself onto. The next tours are on Open House Weekend, which takes place on 18-19 September 2010.

 

Related posts:

1. Free Bank Of England Tour