Bank Fortress of Steel and Stone

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 810, 2 November 1929, Page 34

Bank Fortress of Steel and Stone

New London Vaults Nearing Completion SAID TO BE IMPREGNABLE An army of men who have been working for years under the strictest oaths of secrecy are now completing the new' vaults for the Bank of England. They have transformed them into a veritable fortress of steel and stone, a £5,000,000 castle which will be able to defy any attack even from the air. Bombs will be useless and underground tunnellers will meet with impenetrable barriers. Engineers estimate it would take weeks of hard work with dynamite and oxyacetylene torches even to damage the huge steel doors that lead to the vaults. Some of the vaults are now finished. and they embody the safebuilders’ most perfect designs, and the most modern type of reinforced concrete and steel. Concrete walls seven feet thick run around the vaults. Inside the walls are steel grills built into slabs of concrete and passages where armed guards will patrol when the vaults are full of bullion. The vault doors are solid steel and weigh 12 tons each. And though they are so delicately balanced on their hinges that a child could swing them open, once they are locked they are strong enough to withstand the force of tons of dynamite. Honey-combed in the maze of stone and steel will be scores ot alarms and bells, to shrill out a warning as soon as any intruder enters. The bank has its own water supply, electricity plant and army of guardsmen, and In case of attack — by revolutionary forces, for example —could withstand siege indefinitely.