The Bank of England is one of the world's leading gold custodians. Institutions from all over the world trust us to keep their gold safe and to support the buying and selling of it globally. We look after about 400,000 bars, worth more than £200 billion, for the UK's government, commercial banks and other central banks.
This makes us the second-largest keeper of gold in the world – behind the New York Federal Reserve in the US.
Watch this video to find out more:
Gold at the Bank of England
Below the Bank of England is one of the largest store of gold anywhere in the world. We look after more than 400,000 gold bars, worth billions of pounds.
The gold is kept in nine underground vaults and we guard it very carefully. Our customers are the UK Government, banks and other governments around the world.
Each gold bar costs hundreds of thousands of pounds. Their value can go up and down.
Our customers can trade their gold bars with other customers at the Bank. When a customer trades gold it usually doesn’t move, instead the name of the owner will change on our system.
Not many people are allowed to visit our vaults, however, the Queen and Prince Charles have had a look around.
Even though we look after lots of gold, we only own two bars. You can see them in our museum and if you’re feeling strong you can try to lift one.
Some interesting facts, did you know that an ounce of gold can be stretched a distance of over 50 miles? All of the gold mined so far in the world, would fill more than three Olympic sized swimming pools.
We have been holding gold in our vaults for hundreds of years, so central banks and other institutions trust us to keep their bars safe.
They also trust us to keep accurate ownership records, which allow gold to be bought and sold securely and efficiently.
London is a global centre for gold trading. By storing it with us, central banks get easy access to the market. In other words, we make trading gold easier because we can simply change the name of the owner in our records without having to move any bars from our secure vaults.
No, you can't.
In the past, you could exchange banknotes for the equivalent value in gold at the Bank, but this has not been possible since the early 1930s.
But you can hold a real gold bar in the Bank of England Museum.
Security is central to our role as a custodian. Access to our underground vaults is tightly controlled, and we keep detailed records of every bar and its owner.
No gold has ever been stolen. But there is a remarkable story that suggests that we had a lucky escape in Victorian times…
In 1836, the Directors of the Bank of England received some anonymous letters. The story goes that a writer claimed to have access to the vaults and offered to meet them there at an hour of their choosing.
The Directors were finally persuaded to gather one night in the vault. At the agreed hour, they heard a noise from underneath the floor and a man popped up through some of the boards.
The man was a sewer worker who, while doing repairs, had discovered an old drain that ran immediately under the gold vault.
After the initial shock, a stock take revealed that he hadn’t taken any gold. For his honesty, the Bank gave him a gift of £800. This would be worth about £81,000 in July 2026 (see our inflation calculator).
Historians have not been able to confirm how accurate this story is.
