{"id":1115510,"date":"2026-07-28T05:00:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1115510\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T05:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:00:29","slug":"why-the-bank-of-england-museum-is-a-one-of-a-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1115510\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Bank of England museum is a one-of-a-kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tTuesday 28 July 2026 5:12 am
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMonday 27 July 2026 5:20 pm\n\t<\/p>\n

\"Gold\t\tA gold bar at the Bank of England museum\t<\/p>\n

Where else in the country can you walk into a museum and without any guard present, lift a gold bar worth \u00a31.2 million? Welcome to the Bank of England museum, one of the City\u2019s hidden gems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Apart from the gold bar, a reminder of the 400,000 beneath you, the museum is a real treasure house, stretching from the Bank\u2019s foundation in 1694 by William and Mary \u2013 the first governor was the Scot Robert Houblon by the way \u2013 right up to today, with regular exhibitions of imaginative art, recycled notes and currently about bees\u2019 relationship to money, and the surprisingly prevalent practise of honey fraud.<\/p>\n

After the airport style security, don\u2019t forget to look at the mosaics as you arrive in the foyer.<\/p>\n

These are by the same Russian artist, Boris Anrep, who designed the National Gallery mosaics<\/a>, and are all based on historic British coinage \u2013\u00a0 the one behind security from Oliver Cromwell\u2019s time, declaring Pax Quaeritur Bello, a rather Orwellian \u201cPeace through War\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013\u00a0 including a speech from Charles II apologising for defaulting on his debts \u2013 leading up to its foundation.\u00a0 There are also interactive games for younger visitors showing for example the effects of monetary policy on inflation.<\/p>\n

\t\tBank of England\u2019s treasures<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interestingly, when the Bank\u2019s interior was demolished and remodelled in the 1930s, leaving only Soane\u2019s curtain wall, the Architectural writer Pevsner labelled it \u201cthe greatest architectural crime, in the City of London, of the 20th century.\u201d<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

The massive chest on display dates to its earliest days at Mercers\u2019 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\u2019s possession of plantations with almost 600 enslaved Africans in the 1780s \u2013 a salutary reminder of the City\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Further sections talk about the current security measures, and show one of the infamous Operation Bernhard Nazi forged bank notes that were almost perfect \u2013 they forced Jewish concentration camp prisoners to create them.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Bank of England museum is free to visit and open Monday to Friday 10-5,\u00a0until 8pm the third Thursday of every month<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\u2018Number 10 North\u2019 is no more than a gimmick<\/a><\/p>\n

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\t\t\tPeople & Organisations\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday 28 July 2026 5:12 am \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0 Monday 27 July 2026 5:20 pm A gold bar at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1115511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5008],"tags":[279037,748,304126,2766,393,4884,388,31953,146796,209614,16,15],"class_list":["post-1115510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-england","tag-bank-of-engalnd","tag-britain","tag-city-am-toast-awards","tag-culture","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-lifestyle","tag-museum","tag-toast-the-city","tag-tour-guides","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116995846991535561","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1115510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1115511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}