DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13856#0011
National Safe Deposit Company's premises.
5
construct a building that shall be proof against all the mechanical and other
appliances of burglars, and also against the more insidious and dangerous element
of fire. Of course in such a building each compartment or repository will be as
safe as the building itself.
Upon this idea the National Safe Deposit Company 'was organised and the
directors were fortunate enough to secure what is probably the best site in London
for the purpose. The building is being erected on the triangular area on the
west side of the Mansion House, which is completely isolated by Queen Victoria
Street, Charlotte Bow, and Bucklersbury; its principal elevation is in Queen
Victoria Street, the great artery of traffic between the heart of the City and the
West End via the Thames Embankment; and it forms an important addition to
the extensive group of handsome buildings in its immediate vicinity, comprising
the Mansion House, the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, the Union Bauk
of London, &c. The superficial area of the building is 6,500 feet. The external
and party walls are of extraordinary thickness and strength, and in the interior,
but completely detached from every part of the external building, there is
constructed an impregnable vault 69 feet long by 314- feet wide and 36 feet high,
divided into four chambers of four floors, each having a cubical capacity of 9,889
feet and a floor area of 332 feet. The great vault is built on arches, so that the
whole of it, top, bottom, and sides, may be constantly, day and night, under the
view and inspection of the Company's armed watchmen ; its walls are of immense
strength and it is further protected by an unapproachable and impenetrable
burglar-proof armour plating; the roof is formed of semi-circular arches ; and the
whole of the structure is effectually fire-proof, burglar-proof, and bomb-proof.
The object for which these novel and costly works have been designed and
constructed may be assumed to be a most important one. It is, in brief; to
afford to the public a perfectly secure and inexpensive repository for their
valuables of every description; and to relieve their minds from the harassing
and wearing strain occasioned by the storage of such property either with persons
who are wholly irresponsible for losses that may be sustained, or in places which
are known to be insecure against an extensive conflagration or a resolute attack
by burglars.
The enormous annual increase of realised capital in this country has, of late
years, been, to a large extent, invested in government and other bonds and shares
payable "to the Beaker." Securities of this description which are dealt in on
the London Stock Exchange are now to be reckoned by Thousands of Millions,
and they are as dangerous in their custody as anything that could have been
5
construct a building that shall be proof against all the mechanical and other
appliances of burglars, and also against the more insidious and dangerous element
of fire. Of course in such a building each compartment or repository will be as
safe as the building itself.
Upon this idea the National Safe Deposit Company 'was organised and the
directors were fortunate enough to secure what is probably the best site in London
for the purpose. The building is being erected on the triangular area on the
west side of the Mansion House, which is completely isolated by Queen Victoria
Street, Charlotte Bow, and Bucklersbury; its principal elevation is in Queen
Victoria Street, the great artery of traffic between the heart of the City and the
West End via the Thames Embankment; and it forms an important addition to
the extensive group of handsome buildings in its immediate vicinity, comprising
the Mansion House, the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, the Union Bauk
of London, &c. The superficial area of the building is 6,500 feet. The external
and party walls are of extraordinary thickness and strength, and in the interior,
but completely detached from every part of the external building, there is
constructed an impregnable vault 69 feet long by 314- feet wide and 36 feet high,
divided into four chambers of four floors, each having a cubical capacity of 9,889
feet and a floor area of 332 feet. The great vault is built on arches, so that the
whole of it, top, bottom, and sides, may be constantly, day and night, under the
view and inspection of the Company's armed watchmen ; its walls are of immense
strength and it is further protected by an unapproachable and impenetrable
burglar-proof armour plating; the roof is formed of semi-circular arches ; and the
whole of the structure is effectually fire-proof, burglar-proof, and bomb-proof.
The object for which these novel and costly works have been designed and
constructed may be assumed to be a most important one. It is, in brief; to
afford to the public a perfectly secure and inexpensive repository for their
valuables of every description; and to relieve their minds from the harassing
and wearing strain occasioned by the storage of such property either with persons
who are wholly irresponsible for losses that may be sustained, or in places which
are known to be insecure against an extensive conflagration or a resolute attack
by burglars.
The enormous annual increase of realised capital in this country has, of late
years, been, to a large extent, invested in government and other bonds and shares
payable "to the Beaker." Securities of this description which are dealt in on
the London Stock Exchange are now to be reckoned by Thousands of Millions,
and they are as dangerous in their custody as anything that could have been