TREASURE VAULTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1940, Page 12

TREASURE VAULTS

BENEATH LONDON’S PAVEMENTS Neither bombs nor fire can reach treasure, estimated to be worth £500,000,000, which is buried below London pavements. It includes gold, precious stones, works of art, priceless knick-knacks, valuable documents, and banknotes. It belongs to inhabitants of half the lands of the world. Dug out of the primeval clay on which four famous London streets stand are Safe Deposits—miles of steel-lined corridors, with thousands of iron safes and hundreds of concrete strongrooms. The first to be built in England, in Chancery Lane, covers 34,000 square feet, and is completely fenced in by a concrete wall four feet thick. There are 250 strong-rooms and 7000 safes in that stronghold. LOCKS COST £2OO EACH. Each of the vaults weighs 500 tons, and has a two-ton door controlled by intricate time-locks, which cost £2OO each. Each safe has two locks, the key of one held by the Bank and of the other by the renter. Both have to be used to open the safe. These strongrooms, which range in size from a large box to a small shop, are rented for from £lO to £l5O a year. Small iron safes are available at 25/a year. Hitler’s threat to invade Holland sent Dutch art treasures worth £5,000,000 into British safe deposits. Hitler’s own people also tricked him out of the treasures he coveted. Germans have stored gold, silver, and precious stones of immense value beneath London pavements. One safe contains the life work of, a German scientist. He smuggled the papers of his formulas out of Berlin just before the war, and the secret of his discoveries is safely hidden where Hitler’s bombs could never penetrate. Queen Mary keeps some of her most intimate treasures in a safe beneath a London street. In the same deposit were stored foreign bonds by the Spanish Government during the recent civil war.

Safe deposits are patrolled day and night by armed guards. Mirrors are fitted at the angles of the corridor surrounding the main strongroom, so that the whole of the corridor can be seen at once.