How the Bank of England once protected billions of pounds around Britain

Jack @ The Security Museum

Until 1997, the Bank of England – Britain’s central bank – operated a network of high-security facilities strategically located around the country to handle billions of pounds worth of banknotes and gold bullion. As attractive targets for criminal groups, hostile states, rioters, and other threat actors, the specific security measures deployed to protect these assets were kept secret from the public. The Bank of England (BoE) branches have since been decommissioned, sold off and in several cases demolished completed. This has provided opportunities over past years to understand what physical security measures the BoE employed at its regional branches. This article will explore what we discovered.

One of the main responsibilities of central banks is to manage the nation’s cash reserves: billions of pounds worth of currency, stored and transported around the country as necessary. Circulating money is a critical task, helping to keep the country’s economy working and maintain trust in the financial system. 200 years ago, in 1826, the Bank of England established its first network of regional branches around the country, taking control of the circulation of money. Within 3 years, the bank had 11 regional branches, serving London, Birmingham, Bristol, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Swansea.

These branches were built, or converted for banking use, with security measures aimed at protecting against 19^th century threats. Physical security measures included iron grilles on ground-floor windows, front doors reinforced with steel, iron shutters on the windows of agents’ rooms, “and double-walled strong rooms with heavily-fortified [vault] doors built in the basements”[1].

1847-era BoE branch in Leeds (©2026 The Security Museum).

Following the end of the Second World War, Britain’s crime rates surged and a new wave of crime spread across Britain’s cities. A growing number of robberies targeted banks, post offices and cash couriers, and criminal techniques, tools and methods were evolving. The crime trends likely influenced the BoE’s decision to modernise its remaining branch network in the mid-1960s to early 1970s. The Bank built new prominent, fortified new reinforced concrete, brutalist architectural buildings, replacing the older and smaller buildings used by the Bank of England since the mid-1800s. The new sites were specifically designed with high-security infrastructure to protect against determined and capable attackers. In the case of Southampton and Liverpool, the existing branches were expanded and modernised.

This new generation of post-war regional branches were strategically placed to distribute cash within their designated areas. The aim of the BoE’s 1960s programme was similar to the original 1828 plan – to improve the efficiency and security of cash distribution and handling, reduce the number of miles cash had to be transported and to securely store gold bullion. It is possible that the 1963 Great Train Robbery, in which robbers stole about £2.6 million worth of bank notes from a Royal Mail High Value Packages coach, also influenced the BoE’s decision to build this more secure network.

The branches were located as follows:

The Newcastle upon Tyre branch covered the North East region
The Manchester and Liverpool branches covered the North West
The Leeds branch covered the North East
The Birmingham branch covered the West Midlands
The Bristol branch covered the South West of England and the Welsh cities of Newport, Cardiff and Swansea
The Southampton branch covered the South of England
The London branches covered the South East region and Greater London
The Glasgow branch covered Scotland

The new generation of buildings had strong, bold and dissuasive appearances, constructed in the Brutalist style, with reinforced concrete walls and small, or long and thin, windows with thick, blast and bullet-resistant glass. Where unnecessary, low-level windows were eliminated completely, reducing vulnerable points. These buildings were built to be permanent structures that conveyed strength, stability and security.

Former Bank of England branches in Birmingham (left) and Leeds (right) (©2026 The Security Museum).

On the outside, most branch buildings did not benefit from any of the type of vehicle security barriers that modern UK cash centres now have as standard. The common use of vehicles by criminals for ram-raiding came later. The branches did however have barriers with anti-climb measures to deter and delay intruders from climbing over into restricted external areas (when present). By the 1980s, branches also had external CCTV coverage from analogue cameras, which fed back to each branch’s security control room. CCTV would have been used to detect suspicious or hostile activity, identify staff and visitors, and capture post-incident evidence.

External CCTV cameras at former BoE regional branches (©2026 The Security Museum).

Each branch had at least two pedestrian entrances – one for members of the public and one for employees and maintenance personnel. Public entrances typically led into a banking hall with enquiry desks behind bullet-resistant glass panels, and was often the only space which members of the public had access to. Employee entrances were usually located discreetly around the side of the building, and passed by a security checkpoint or security control room (SCR). All pedestrian and vehicle entrances had metal security doors reinforced with deadbolts and high-security locks for resistance against forced entry. Intercom systems were used to communicate between the control room and the outside, with security officers controlling employee access. Spotlights were used to illuminate access points at night.

The staff entrance to a regional BoE branch. To the left of the steel door is a bullet-resistant glass window and intercom, enabling security officers to observe and communicate with individuals in front of the door. A mirror was installed to the right of the door to enhance the field of view (©2026 The Security Museum).

Security control rooms (SCRs) were one of the most important parts of the building, being where the branch’s security and surveillance systems fed into and could be monitored from – such as CCTV, intrusion detection systems, fire alarms and public address systems. They were also where many of each branch’s keys were stored, where security officers could communicate with police, and where external electronically assisted doors and gates could be opened and closed.

Inside the security control room of a decommissioned Bank of England regional branch (©2026 The Security Museum). Security officers controlled access to the site, monitored CCTV and alarm systems, managed keys, conducted patrols, and maintained surveillance of the building.

In the event of a robbery, the SCR would be a very likely target by offenders, to delay any police or security response. SCRs were therefore constructed to be protected from all sides, with reinforced concrete, armoured doors and bullet-resistant windows. Access was usually only possible via an interlocking door system. These armoured interlocks door systems prevented a person from charging into, or tailgating an authorised employee into, the SCR, as the first door would need to close and lock before the second would unlock. This system could also be used to confine an attacker within the interlock between the two doors.

Bullet-resistant glass and door interlock at a former BoE security control room (©2026 The Security Museum).

From the small, bullet-resistant windows of the SCR, security officers could also observe armoured security vehicles carrying cash or valuables requiring access to load or unload within the building. Convex security mirrors were often fixed to the outside of the building to enhanced the security officers’ view of view and address blind spots.

Bullet-resistant windows (AKA armoured vision blocks,) on a security control room at a decommissioned regional BoE branch. Like medieval military structures, SCRs were often built to give defenders a multi-angled field of view from behind the safety of small viewing points (©2026 The Security Museum).

Once the security officers had remotely opened the sliding security gates leading to the secure underground loading bays, they could then observe the vehicles drive inside, by looking through another set of bullet resistant windows. However, with another interlocking system, each vehicle could only drive down a few metres, before having to stop in front of a second gate, while the outer gate closed behind it.

An internal vehicle access point, with interlocking gates, leading to a secure vehicle loading zone beneath a decommissioned regional branch (©2026 The Security Museum).

Any police officers involved in the protective escort of BoE armoured vehicles would have to wait and secure the outside of the site. Once cleared of the second door, armoured vehicles could drive down to a loading bay and wait for the blast-resistant sliding barrier to be opened, before reversing into the loading bay. Once the barrier had re-closed behind the vehicle, the vehicle crew members of the vehicle would exit and proceed with passing their cargo to authorised Bank of England employees via secure bulk transfer units, or directly to employees. Should the staff suspect a robbery, they could press one of the many under-desk blue panic buttons that were linked directly to the police and would trigger an armed response.

Secure vehicle loading bays beneath a decommissioned regional branch (©2026 The Security Museum).

On the internal side of the floors housing the large strongrooms, the physical security measures only continued, with additional delay, detection, mitigation and response measures. Most doors were armoured and had high-security Chubb locks. Analogue close circuit television (CCTV) cameras were used to monitor corridors and access points. Telephones linked different critical areas with each other, such as strongrooms, vault lobbies, the security control room, and loading bays.

Internal fixed CCTV cameras beneath a decommissioned BoE regional branch (©2026 The Security Museum).

The vault areas were divided into several separate strongrooms, some for storing gold bullion, others for banknotes. Cash or gold consignments would have to be transported by staff through two to four more different steel doors or day gates, before being unloaded into the final strongroom. As with other parts of the building, the spaces were designed to delay attackers by presenting multiple layers of barriers, each requiring a specific type of access (often, what staff had – such as keys, combined with what staff knew, such as combinations).

Entrances to strongrooms used to store banknotes within a decommissioned regional BoE branch (©2026 The Security Museum).

Steel strongroom doors – like many for the safes in the branches – could only be opened by two people, using separate combinations. Branches had up to about eight strongrooms, typically designed, constructed and installed by Chubb & Sons or John Tann Ltd. The huge Treasury vault doors could weigh between 8 and 14 tonnes, and were fitted with mechanical combination locks – such as the Chubb 7L51 Indirect Drive 4-wheel combination lock – and time delay locks. Strongrooms also had smaller vault doors designed as emergency exits. The vault doors were intended to act as the final barriers against determined attackers, delaying or mitigating a range of both forced entry and surreptitious attack methods.

A Chubb 7L51 Indirect Drive 4-wheel combination lock, of the type used on some BoE vault doors. From The Security Museum Collection.

Chubb Treasury strongroom door within a decommissioned regional branch. The paper displays guidance on setting the Chubb timelocks (©2026 The Security Museum).

Keys to steel day gates (used during the day, when the strongrooms were in use) were kept in wall safes to the side of the strongroom doors, and two different keys were required to unlock most day gates – following the principle of ‘dual control’. Within the strongrooms, banknotes would be stored in cages, and gold bullion – stored in separate strongrooms – stacked onto sturdy shelving. Intrusion detection sensors were used to detect unauthorised movement or attempts to penetrate the strongrooms.

The inside of a former Bank of England gold bullion strongroom, with PIR motion sensors installed on each wall (©2026 The Security Museum).

The strongrooms were air-tight and therefore had independent air supplies, delivered into the rooms via duct systems installed above each vault door. The strongrooms were also designed to withstand aerial bombardments – a common fear in Cold War Britain. This was why the strongrooms had 60cm-wide corridors passing along the four two-metre-wide concrete, granite and hardened steel strongroom walls, designed to help absorb energy from an explosive impact and blast. These corridors could also be used by security officers to inspect the outside of the strongroom wall. These features are a reminder that the Cold War era branches were designed with a wide range of threats in mind – not just armed robberies and internal theft, but also foreign military attacks.

A panic button, linked directly to the local police service, within a decommissioned Bank of England regional branch (©2026 The Security Museum). Like in all modern banks, BoE branches all had panic alarm buttons installed under desks in the secure loading areas, near and within strongrooms, behind banking hall guichets, and in other key locations around the building.

The extensive physical security measures in place at BoE regional branches were critical to deterring, delaying, detecting, mitigating and enabling a response to both external and internal threats. However, physical measures are only ever part of an overall protective security programme to manage security risk to an organisation’s people and assets. The physical measures were underpinned by security engineering and building design, BoE security policies, procedures, processes and the behaviours of the internal security teams and staff working there. Despite rising violent crime levels across the country, there appear to have been no successful robberies of any of the BoE’s regional branches between 1970 and 1997, unlike the central banks of the neighbouring countries of France and Ireland, which both suffered losses to robbery groups.

The Bank of England eventually outsourced their regional cash distribution activities to private companies, and consequently closed most of its own branches in 1997. This significant move was intended to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of the cash handling and distribution system in the UK. Instead of the BoE handling and distributing cash from its regional branches, which bared significant costs – particularly on security measures – it was decided that it would be more efficient to outsource the operations (and operational risk) to private firms, who would process and distribute cash from many more, and often smaller, purpose-built cash depots, located all around the country.

The last of the 1970s-era regional branches to be vacated by the BoE was the Leeds branch, which moved in 2023. Pictured are the staff and vehicle entrances to the Leeds cash centre, and the exterior of the fortified security control room (©2026 The Security Museum).

The end of Bank of England regional cash handling branches saw the creation of the so-called Note Circulation Scheme (NCS), of which there are four members: Vaultex UK, G4S Cash Solutions, NatWest Group (previously Royal Bank of Scotland) and the Post Office. Under the NCS, these companies run cash processing and distribution operations for big cash handling businesses in the UK. As described by the Bank of England:

“NCS members supply banknotes to their customers from a number of cash centers located around the UK. Banknotes enter circulation when they have been distributed by the NCS members to banks, building societies, automated teller machine (ATM) operators and large retailers.”[2]

These companies now process tens of billions of pounds worth of banknotes every year.[3] Several of their cash centres have been targeted by robberies – most infamously the Securitas (now Vaultex) run Tonbridge cash centre, from which over £53 million was stolen in 2006.