Known familiarly for the past couple of centuries as "the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," after someone's parliamentary quip, the bank, which has been central to the British economy since 1694, manages the national debt and the foreign exchange reserves, issues banknotes, sets interest rates, looks after England's gold, and regulates the country's banking system. Sir John Soane designed the neoclassic hulk in 1788, wrapping it in windowless walls, which are all that survives of his building. It's ironic that an executive of so sober an institution should have been Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows. This and other facets of the bank's history are traced in the Bank of England Museum. COST: Free. Tube: Bank or Monument.