I’ve got a bunch of old paper £20s that need to be changed. Rather than take them the post office counter at the back of my local, grubby WH Smiths, I thought it’d be fun to take them straight to the Bank of England next time I’m in London.
However the BoE website advises their public counter in Threadneedle Street has *long* queues and it can take hours to get served. Is it really that bad? If it’s a 20-minute errand, that’s fine. If it takes 3 hours, then it’s not.
9 comments
Really good fun! We have a right laugh.
Omg it’s *so* fun! They bring out a band and everything
Why not try it at a potentially unbusy time and if the queue is too long don’t bother. There is the Bank of England museum there too which is well worth a visit so it needn’t be a wasted trip.
I had a whale of time exchanging pennies with the lad behind the counter. What a hoot!
I did some work for BoE and went to that counter once, it was a 15 minute wait with a queue of one. Got to your bank, PO, etc.
You walk in the door, there’s likely to be a security guard or other member of staff immediately inside who will ask why you’re there, tell them you’re exchanging old notes and they’ll point you to the counters (which were over to the right five years ago, may have moved), you wait in line while looking around at some absolutely stunning craftsmanship in the stonework and woodwork and flooring and shiny polished metalwork, once at the counter they’ll ask you some questions, you’ll need to provide some personal info, depending on overall value the process will take anything from 10 minutes to half an hour
I went once and it was about 10-15 minute wait. It won’t be very long, especially now where we’ve not had a recent new note
Just don’t shout ‘they won’t give me my money’ when they won’t exchange your tuppence
Pretty horny.