BANK OF ENGLAND

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 263, 30 June 1932, Page 8

BANK OF ENGLAND

MASSIVE SAFES NECESSARY TO UPH.OLD PRESTIGE OF INSTITUTION. ARTILLERY PROOF DOORS. LONDON, June 1. "I -want the new Bank of England made so inrpregnable that no one could even steal so much as half a sovereign from its vaults. Even the theft of that srnall sum would ruin our prestige." The statement, niade hy the Hon. Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England, is responsible for the mighty barricade of steel and ce~ ment being built sixty feet below the streets of London. Mr. Norman's instruetions are being carried out to the letter, and the new vaults will withstand assault, fire, bombardment, dynamite, and flood for the next 500 years. If any intruder ever gets inside, he must face the danger of being drowned, shot, or captured. The new safes are eosting £500,000, and will be the main feature of the new Bank of England 'building, now half fmished. All work has been carried out behind high barricades. The outer doors of the safes are described as artillery proof. The outer shells are bronze, while the cores are solid blocks of three-inch steel. All the "strong room" system rests on a three-foot bed of conerete reinforced with hardened steel rods, and covered with a layer of steel. The sides of the vaults and safes are protected in the same way. Arehitects are certain that no amount of tunnelling would ever permit access from below or from the sides. The Only Access. The only feasible access to the safes and vaults will be from above, through massive grille gates and steel doors, guarded, if necessar, (by machine gunners. Inside these gates and doors is a deep shaft, with elevators, leading down to the level of the vaults. In emergencies tliis shaft can be flooded, drowing intruders, with no danger of the water penetrating the strong rooms. There are mere strong grilles at ihe bottom of the shaft and the huge safe door weigiiing twenty-five tons. Not even the governor of the bank can open the safe door. The combination code of the loek is divided up, no one person knowing all of it. Even inside the safe door there are innumerable steel doors to be opened before a single bar of gold could be removed from the rack ou which it lies. The walls of the safes are lined with gypsum and ki \selguhr, which prevent the temperature inside ever going above a 'certain mark whatever the heat outside. Fire could rage around the safes for days without singeing a single doeument inside. Above the vaults speeial precautions have been taken against hold-ups. Even the electric light switches are encased in recesses in the walls, covered with hinged bronze plates which act as miniature safes. It would be impossible for hold-up men to plunge the entrances to the vaults in darkness. The vaults are large cnough to hold all the gold bullion the bank may ever accumulate, plus all the treasures in the vaults of other -umbai'd stroet banks if they had to be rushed to the Bank of England in an emergvmcy.