It can be a bit of a challenge to entertain older kids in the City of London (perhaps while waiting for Mum or Dad to finish a work meeting) so it's good to know that you can spend an hour or so here to amuse them without having to pay for an entry ticket. And with inflation and monetary policy hitting the headlines so much of late perhaps your teens have started asking awkward questions - and this place has all the answers.
Just a few steps from Bank underground station (now that's easy) you go into the impressive fortress of the Bank of England (there are no windows!) and undergo airport style security checks. Through a door and up some steps (the access ramps for those with buggies and with wheelchairs is impressive) you enter a large domed room with lovely skylights.
There's a jigsaw to make to explain all about inflation - which is the theme of this room. I spent around five minutes playing with a large hot air balloon simulator where one handle added money to the economy (so inflation and the balloon went up) or took it out of the economy so it went down. Along the computer simulated route there were various economic events to navigate. Trying to keep the economy on track was a little trickier than I anticipated but I was relatively pleased with my 78% on target score.
There were further touch screen displays on inflation with explanatory videos (e.g. why inflation matters) and, strangely, lots of folders containing printed sections from the Consumer Price Index. I also found some historical documents about the Titanic here.
Then I ventured into one of the corridors and started exploring lots of coin displays - remember shillings and half crowns? There were displays showing the historical figures on previous bank notes, examples of Euro currency (wonder how long they'll be there now?) and examples of the first ever bank notes.
In the Modern Economy section I was fascinated to see tubes of ground up bank notes that had been removed from circulation - half a million pounds worth. There were cases showing how it all works with making money at the Royal Mint, old printing presses and more than a few old chests.
There was a list of former Governors of the Bank of England - I'd actually met one of them (Robin Leigh-Pemberton - 1983-1993) and a note about the current one (Mervyn King).
Being interested in architecture I watched a series of films about the building. I didn't know that at first (1694-1788) the bank resided first at the Mercers Livery Company building and then at the Grocers Company. George Sampson designed the first building on Threadneedle Street but it was then rebuilt in 1925.
I wandered on, passing between some comical caricature statues of Pitt and Fox and entered another large dome ceilinged room (the Rotunda) - this time containing a number of classical statues around much larger display cases.
It was genuinely interesting to use an audio visual exhibit to learn how to be a bank note examiner (I guess potential forgers might spend some time here). But for me the highlight of my visit was to put my hands through a container to try to lift up a real gold bar. It WAS heavy. And you simply couldn't help feeling a bit awkward with the CCTV camera trained on you as you attempt it with people around watching your every move. Made me think that in those bank heist movies they got it really wrong!
There were other exhibits - like a diorama of the original bank building, explanations about when the Bank was nationalised in 1946, explorations of financial and monetary stability ideas and reminders about what happened when the UK was decimalised.
I was impressed that there were a number of free leaflets (including a helpful guide to the museum - which you could recycle at the end of your visit) and a free word search as well as a small shop selling pocket money priced gifts with a gold and currency theme.
If you have bright kids who ask difficult questions about news items such as quantitative easing and inflation it's handy to know you can pop them in here for a while and they should have a pretty good grasp of the basics on modern economics.
And I suppose with the Jubilee celebrations it might spark an interest in some kids to look into the role of the royals in things like the Royal Mint. Brings a whole new meaning to the saying "as good as gold"!
Opening times 10am-5pm but closed on weekends. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/museum/default.aspx
There are also 'Bringing money to life' special events - for example: 6-8 June a search and create your own crown event, 23 and 30 June open on Saturdays as part of the City of London Festival. All events are free.
Other nearby sights to see in the City are listed in the following 'Culture in the City' blog http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/blogs/showblog.php?post=2222
