068 HowIt Works http://www.howitworksdaily.com
HISTORY
W
hen you walk dow n Threadneedle
Street in the centre of London, you are
effectively walking above a goldmine.
The Bank of England is ver y different from your
t y pical high-street financial institution. This is
the UK’s national bank, and rather than dealing
w ith digits on a screen, it’s partly a storage
facilit y for physical money: bars of pure gold.
Sometimes we love money, yet other times it
infuriates us. Some people have too much, and
many people not enough. Money isn’t
ever y thing, but in a world where ever y thingcomes w ith a price, it is something that needs to
be managed w ith serious responsibilit y.
Most of us w ill only ever see the outside walls
of such a bank, heav ily fortified and enclosing a
private world. Tasked w ith managing the
economic stabilit y of the UK, its employees and
committees meet regularly to manage issues
such as inflation rates, currenc y authenticit y
and threats to financial stabilit y. It is common
knowledge that the thick concrete walls encase
a golden headquarters, but what else can be
found inside?What goes on in the bank’s 3.5-acre headquarters?
Inside the Bank of England
Vaults of gold
Storing one of the largest deposits of
gold in the world, the Bank of England’s
vaults are spread across two
underground floors. These secure rooms
were built in the 1930s and currently hold
over 400,000 bars of gold, each weighing
around 13 kilograms. When the gold
arrives at the bank it has to be sorted and
stored. Every bar is weighed and stacked
on blue shelves to keep them distributed
evenly in number. Each shelf carries 80
bars of solid gold.
Thisstockpileofgoldmaybe
impressive,butasit is nolongerusedin
dailypurchases,whydoweneedtostore
theseheftyblocksunderneaththebank?
UntiltheGoldStandardwasabandonedin
1931 intheUK,it wassobanknotescould
representsomething.Althoughpeople
weren’tusinggoldbarstopay,theywere
stilltechnicallythecurrency.Withoutthe
equivalentvalueofgoldheldbytheBank
ofEnglandtocash,thispapermoneywas
worthless.Theideawasthatyoucould
cashinyourmoneyforphysicalgoldat
anytime.Today,youcanonlyexchangea
banknoteforanothernoteofequivalent
value.Thegoldinthevaultis heldto
supportBritain’sfinancialstability.Keeping gold evenly stored maintains a constant
weight and prevents the gold sinking into the floor© Getty© AlamyThe Bank of England was
designed by British architect
Sir John Soane