Inside the Bank of England: century-old building sheltering 400,000 gold bars

The Bank of England this week opened a centenary exhibition that offers the public a rare look inside a London landmark that sits above an estimated 400,000 gold bars and houses rooms where decisions on interest rates are taken.

Work to rebuild the present Bank began about a century ago and the project, completed in 1939, created a seven-storey structure rising above three basement levels on a three-and-a-half acre site in the City of London. The Bank, founded by Royal Charter in 1694 and moved to Threadneedle Street in 1734, has expanded over centuries to enclose the site within a continuous windowless wall first introduced by Sir John Soane in the 1800s.

The 14-year rebuilding programme of the early 20th century was led by chief architect Sir Henry Baker. It was carried out while the bank continued to operate on the site and cost £5 million at the time — an amount the museum says is roughly equivalent to £285 million today. The works sought to retain elements of earlier structures, reusing stone fireplaces and columns, but the demolition and redevelopment prompted controversy, with critics calling it one of the great architectural losses of the century.

Visitors to the Bank of England Museum exhibition, titled "Building the Bank," encounter mosaics, sculptures and decorative motifs that broadcast the institution's purpose and history. Large mosaics by Russian artist Boris Anrep adorn corridors; lions, griffins and depictions of Mercury recur as symbols of security and finance; and a Roman mosaic discovered during the 1930s excavations remains on display.

The exhibition includes a range of public-facing spaces and rooms that remain in active use. On the first floor, a silk-lined anteroom leads through heavy wooden doors into an octagonal committee room. That room is, with modern microphones and screens added, the venue for the Monetary Policy Committee's monthly meetings on interest rates — decisions with wide economic repercussions.

"This is where, to the present day, the bank's monetary policy committee meets to make decisions about rates as part of the bank's remit to manage inflation," Jenni Adam, curator at the Bank of England Museum, said in an interview. The committee room is protected by thick doors and tight security measures to ensure confidentiality around market-sensitive deliberations.

Beyond ceremonial and decision-making spaces, the bank's operational scale is evident in its subterranean vaults, where bullion belonging to various institutions and countries is stored. Access is tightly controlled and public tours of the vaults are extremely rare; the museum itself displays only two gold bars owned by the bank. The figure of about 400,000 bars often cited by the bank refers to turnover and storage across the facility rather than bars on permanent display.

Architectural and decorative features reflect layers of the bank's past: 18th-century portraits and fireplaces sit alongside 20th-century grand banking halls that sought to echo the earlier Soane designs. A court room, used for formal receptions and large meetings, contains monarch silhouettes, gilded ornamentation and an elaborate green ceiling, underlining the institution's ceremonial role.

The exhibition, which the museum said aims to "open up the architecture" to the public, runs until Spring 2027 and is free to visit. Curator Jenni Adam said that despite working in the building for 15 years, the scale and detail of the fabric still surprise staff: "There's a long legacy, a long heritage. You can trust it, it's going to stick around."

The museum's displays and the rare access provided by the centenary exhibition offer context for an institution integral to Britain's financial infrastructure: a building designed to project permanence and security, and a working central bank whose decisions affect inflation, interest rates and markets at home and abroad.