Inside the Bank of England's vaults: Can cash survive?

It's the smell that hits you first. As the doors to the Bank of England's lifts slide open, the underground corridor that greets you doesn't feel like it leads somewhere important.

Obsolete computers lie abandoned in the corner, while forklift trucks are parked along the labyrinthine passages. Even the signs in the lift are cryptic.

"Four filled cages plus two persons or two scooters," one declares.

"I don't think I've ever seen a scooter before," says Victoria Cleland, the bank's chief cashier and director of banknotes. As the light at the end of the corridor gets brighter, a musty odor fills the air.

It smells like old books, but this isn't the bank's library.

Instead, we're outside one of Threadneedle Street's bank vaults.

The bank houses eighteen of these strongrooms. Nine for gold, and nine for cash. ...

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