On the rare occasions it's open to visitors the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street is usually popular; during Open House Weekend in September it attracts block-winding queues. Via a new app, there's now another way inside the building.
Promising a "virtual tour", the app launches with a neat 3D model of the building, which you can rotate to enter different parts. Each room is illustrated by an interactive 360-degree photograph and various pop-up information boxes. There are some lovely details of the building's architectural features, although the conference rooms where new bank chief Mark Carney presumably spends much of his days are suitably straightlaced. The tone throughout is breezy, with the annotations turning out useful facts and stats but glossing over the bank's day-to-day business.
The app is a free download for iPhone, iPad and Android devices (we tried it out on an iPad). There's also a Flash-based web version.
For more, see our guide to London's financial institutions. A few years ago we featured the Bank of England Museum as our Museum of the Month.
