The museum inside the Bank of England has reopened and is launching its first-ever regular late evening openings. In addition to the new late opening dates, the museum is reopening with an updated gallery explaining the Bank’s modern-day role and a new temporary exhibition.

The museum, which is free to visit, often surprises new visitors with just how large it is, especially as it’s free to visit, and thanks to its weekday only opening hours, not that well known as a museum to visit.

The museum has typically been open only during the working week, and a handful of bank holidays, which has rather limited how people working during the week can visit. Now though they have announced that the museum will be regularly open late until 8pm on the third Thursday of every month, and will still be free to visit.

During the closure, the museum refreshed its modern economy display, adding in sections on the impact of the pandemic on the UK economy, and a display focusing on financial literacy.

A photo on the wall of the museum, you don’t get to see the actual vault.

There’s also a new temporary exhibition, Slavery & the Bank, draws on new research undertaken by specialist staff from the Bank’s Museum and Archive. It uses a series of objects from the Museum collection to explore the historic connections between the Bank of England, the business of the City of London and transatlantic slavery.

Apart from the displays about the history of the Bank and banking, there’s also a full-size gold bar you can get to pick up — it’s a lot heavier than you expect.

Curator Jennifer Adam said: “I am delighted that we can welcome visitors back to the Museum after a long closure due to the Covid pandemic. We have used the period of closure to make a number of important updates to the Museum to ensure that it better reflects the work of the modern Bank of England, as well as recent events such as the economic impact of the pandemic.”

The Bank of England Museum is open Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm and until 8pm on the third Thursday of every month. You can find the entrance around the side of the bank on the eastern side of the fortress like building.

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One comment
  1. Chris Rogers says:

    Sadly the bank has also scrapped public tour access – with the posisble exception of Open House – due, inevitably, to ‘security’.

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