BANK OF ENGLAND

Evening Star, Issue 19841, 14 April 1928, Page 10

BANK OF ENGLAND

ERECTION OF NEW BUILDINGS TO LAST 1,000 YEARS. A unique procedure has been adopted to advance the building of the new Bank of England (says a London correspondent of ‘ Board. and Council’). Every Monday certain governors of the bank now meet the architect, a representative of the constructors, and other exports to discuss precisely what work will bo done before the following Monday. This novel “ works committee” is exercising such infinite care over every detail of the world’s most famous bank that the building of it is expected to take at least ton years. BRINGING THE SUN TO THE INKPOTS. New ideas of many sorts arc being cautiously tried out, and it is typical of the committee’s thoroughness that twenty shillings will he spent iu preparatory work for every two or three spent upon the completed building. The false work for domes and arches upon which the permanent material is built is, for example, most elaborate and actually costs more than the final work itself. One problem which the “ works committee ” has just solved .is that of lighting. They found it impracticable to put in any significant number of windows facing the street; therefore the bank will be lighted from windows overhead, so saving a considerable expenditure for artificial lighting. Another new idea which, they have adopted hero is to glaze these overhead windows with vitnglass to admit the ultra-violet rays of the sun, and thus bring health to the clerks working at their desks below. TO COST £5,000,000. Wherever possible the wonderful scheme of interior decoration and plastering of the old hank is to he maintained in tho. new building. Gelatine moulds, drawings, and models of the old ceilings, rosettes, and mouldings have been preserved as demolition took place, and specially-selected craftsmen wdl carry out the work of reproducing these in the finest medium. In somo parts of the hank solid walls and arches of beautiful brickwork have had to be used temporarily, and, as the building is completed, these will be replaced by more enduring material. The most astonishing feature about the work is the almost uncanny secrecy with which it is being done. Every day thousands of inquiring spectators, many of them visitors from overseas, peer through the doorways without becoming more than dimly aware of the great monument that is slowly coming to perfection. Within 100yds or so of the bank buildings have subsided and collapsed. The bank itself has no fear of such a catastrophe, for its foundations are being laid as firm and solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. The cost of the new bank is estimated to-day at £5,000,000. It will house, in addition to the ordinary offices and business of the bank, the credit of Great Britain in the form of those big blocks of pure gold, generally known as bullion, which are stored in the “long, vaulted strong rooms.” The new Bank of England will be the finest building in the British Empire, and it is being built to last at least 1,000 years.