Bank of England Museum

#57

⭐ Highlights

The Gold Bar

Weight of value, literally

A standard bar weighs around 12–13 kg—heavy enough to reset your idea of ‘portable wealth’.

Grip with both hands and count to five—then imagine shifting thousands of them downstairs.

📍 Central gallery, ‘gold’ section

Old Lady of Threadneedle Street

How a nickname became a persona

A 1797 satirical print personified the Bank to scold its policies; the ‘Old Lady’ stuck for centuries.

Find the cartoon and read it like a meme with 18th-century captions.

📍 Foundations & cartoons corner

Banknotes & Counterfeits

Art, paper and national trust

From hand-signed paper to polymer windows and micro-letters, design arms race vs. forgers.

Tilt a polymer note to spot hidden images; then compare with an early engraved note.

📍 Note design displays

Soane’s Bank

Britain’s most influential ‘lost’ building

Sir John Soane’s windowless perimeter and luminous top-lit halls invented a new bank architecture.

Trace light shafts on the model; Soane lit rooms from above to foil burglars and floods.

📍 Architecture & archive section

Opening Hours

Monday: 10:00 – 17:00

Tuesday: 10:00 – 17:00

Wednesday: 10:00 – 17:00

Thursday: 10:00 – 17:00

Friday: 10:00 – 17:00

Inside the museum

Free, focused, and much more fun than you think. In under an hour you’ll lift a real ~13 kg gold bar (through a secure hatch), meet famous banknotes, and see how the ‘Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’ steers inflation, interest rates and crisis response. Good labels, plenty of interactives, and a neat thread from 1694 founding to today’s polymer notes. Drop in on a City wander; no booking needed.

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🤓 Fun Facts

During WWII, the Bank hid art treasures (including the National Gallery’s) in subterranean vaults—and quietly managed Britain’s gold transfers across the Atlantic.

Nazi ‘Operation Bernhard’ forged millions in high-quality £5 notes; design tweaks and serial tracking helped the Bank outpace the hoard.

Every Bank of England note carries the printed signature of the Chief Cashier—spot how the autograph changes across decades.

The City sits above one of the world’s largest gold reserves—the Bank holds more than just Britain’s, storing bullion for other countries and institutions.