THE BANK OF ENGLAND, HOW TO INVEST IN PROPIERTIES

Today,  The Grandma has visited the Bank of England, the central bank of the United Kingdom, to catch up on her gold reserves.

Meanwhile, The Morgans have started a week of intense work with the completion of various Cambridge A2 tests. 

The family has studied some English vocabulary about Personal Details, Family Matters and Free Time.

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The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. 

Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of the United Kingdom, it is the world's eighth-oldest bank. It was privately owned by stockholders from its foundation in 1694 until it was nationalised in 1946 by the Attlee ministry.

The bank became an independent public organisation in 1998, wholly owned by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of the government, with a mandate to support the economic policies of the government of the day, but independence in maintaining price stability.

The bank is one of eight banks authorised to issue banknotes in the United Kingdom, has a monopoly on the issue of banknotes in England and Wales, and regulates the issue of banknotes by commercial banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The bank's Monetary Policy Committee has devolved responsibility for managing monetary policy. The Treasury has reserve powers to give orders to the committee if they are required in the public interest and by extreme economic circumstances, but Parliament must endorse such orders within 28 days. In addition, the bank's Financial Policy Committee was set up in 2011 as a macroprudential regulator to oversee the UK's financial sector.

The bank's headquarters have been in London's main financial district, the City of London, on Threadneedle Street, since 1734. It is sometimes known as The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, a name taken from a satirical cartoon by James Gillray in 1797. The road junction outside is known as Bank Junction.

As a regulator and central bank, the Bank of England has not offered consumer banking services for many years, but it still does manage some public-facing services, such as exchanging superseded bank notes. Until 2016, the bank provided personal banking services as a privilege for employees.

England's crushing defeat by France, the dominant naval power, in naval engagements culminating in the 1690 Battle of Beachy Head, became the catalyst for England to rebuild itself as a global power. William III's government wanted to build a naval fleet that would rival that of France; however, the ability to construct this fleet was hampered both by a lack of available public funds and the low credit of the English government in London. This lack of credit made it impossible for the English government to borrow the £1,200,000 (at 8% per annum) that it wanted to construct the fleet.

In 1700, the Hollow Sword Blade Company was purchased by a group of businessmen who wished to establish a competing English bank (in an action that would today be considered a back door listing). The Bank of England's initial monopoly on English banking was due to expire in 1710. However, it was instead renewed, and the Sword Blade company failed to achieve its goal.

In 1825–26 the bank was able to avert a liquidity crisis when Nathan Mayer Rothschild succeeded in supplying it with gold.

The last private bank in England to issue its own notes was Thomas Fox's Fox, Fowler and Company bank in Wellington, which rapidly expanded until it merged with Lloyds Bank in 1927. They were legal tender until 1964. There are nine notes left in circulation; one is housed at Tone Dale House, Wellington. 

The bank is custodian to the official gold reserves of the United Kingdom and around 30 other countries.As of April 2016, the bank holds around 5,659 tons of gold, worth £141 billion. These estimates suggest that the vault could hold as much as 3% of the 171,300 tonnes of gold mined throughout human history.

More information: Bank of England

 

We are actors in a play written by others.

Mark Carney

KING'S CROSS STATION, A GREAT TRAVEL TO HOGWARTS

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have travelled to Hogwarts. They have taken the Hogwarts Express in Platform 9+3⁄4 in King Cross railway station.

 

The Hogwarts Express is a train that carries pupils non-stop from Platform 9¾ at King's Cross station in London to Hogsmeade Station, near Hogwarts. Prefects of the school ride in a separate carriage near the front of the train. The compartments on the train appear to be lettered.

The train began use in the 1850s. Before that, pupils used to reach Hogwarts on brooms or enchanted carriages.

During the travel, the family has been preparing their Cambridge Exam studying some vocabulary about Free Time and Rooms.

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King's Cross railway station, also known as London King's Cross, is a passenger railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, on the edge of Central London.

It is in the London station group, one of the busiest stations in the United Kingdom and the southern terminus of the East Coast Main Line to Yorkshire and the Humber, North East England and Scotland.

Adjacent to King's Cross station is St Pancras International, the London terminus for Eurostar services to continental Europe. Beneath both main line stations is King's Cross St Pancras tube station on the London Underground; combined, they form one of the country's largest and busiest transport hubs.

The station was opened in Kings Cross in 1852 by the Great Northern Railway on the northern edge of Central London to accommodate the East Coast Main Line. It quickly grew to cater to suburban lines and was expanded several times in the 19th century. It came under the ownership of the London and North Eastern Railway as part of the Big Four grouping in 1923, who introduced famous services such as the Flying Scotsman and locomotives such as Mallard.

The station complex was redeveloped in the 1970s, simplifying the layout and providing electric suburban services, and it became a major terminus for the high-speed InterCity 125. 

As of 2018, long-distance trains from King's Cross are run by London North Eastern Railway to Edinburgh Waverley, Leeds and Newcastle; other long-distance operators include Hull Trains and Grand Central. In addition, Great Northern runs suburban commuter trains around North London, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk.

In the late 20th century, the area around the station became known for its seedy and downmarket character, and was used as a backdrop for several films as a result. A major redevelopment was undertaken in the 21st century, including restoration of the original roof, and the station became well known for its association with the Harry Potter books and films, particularly the fictional Platform 9+3⁄4.

King's Cross can be spelled both with and without an apostrophe. King's Cross is used in signage at the Network Rail and London Underground stations, on the Tube map and on the official Network Rail webpage. The apostrophe rarely featured on early Underground maps, but has been consistently used on them since 1951. Kings X, Kings+and London KX are abbreviations used in space-limited contexts. The National Rail station code is KGX.

The station currently has 11 platforms, numbered 0 to 10 from east to west. Platforms 9 and 10 are short platforms and separated from platforms 0 to 8.

The station formerly had 12 platforms, numbered 0 to 11 from east to west, but following extensive track remodelling in 2021, platform 10 was taken out of use, with platform 11 being relabelled 10.

The area of King's Cross was previously a village known as Battle Bridge which was an ancient crossing of the River Fleet, originally known as Broad Ford, later Bradford Bridge. The river flowed along what is now the west side of Pancras Road until it was rerouted underground in 1825.

The name Battle Bridge is linked to tradition that this was the site of a major battle between the Romans and the Celtic British Iceni tribe led by Boudica. According to folklore, King's Cross is the site of Boudica's final battle and some sources say she is buried under one of the platforms. Platforms 9 and 10 have been suggested as possible sites. Boudica's ghost is also reported to haunt passages under the station, around platforms 8–10.

King's Cross station was built in 1851-52 as the London terminus of the Great Northern Railway (GNR), and was the fifth London terminal to be constructed. It replaced a temporary station next to Maiden Lane (now York Way) that had been quickly constructed with the line's arrival in London in 1850, and had opened on 7 August 1850.

The station took its name from the King's Cross building, a monument to King George IV that stood in the area and was demolished in 1845. Construction was on the site of a smallpox hospital.

The station, the biggest in England, opened on 14 October 1852.

More information: King's Cross

Excuse me sir,
can you tell me where I might find
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters?

Harry Potter

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE, EGYPTIAN ART IN CENTRAL PARK

Today, The Grangers and The Grandma have visited Cleopatra's Needle, one of three similarly named Egyptian obelisks erected in Central Park in 1881.

 

Before this amazing visit, the family has been practising some English vocabulary about Free Time and Rooms. 

 

 

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Cleopatra's Needle in New York City is one of three similarly named Egyptian obelisks.

It was erected in Central Park, west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, on February 22, 1881. It was secured in May 1877 by judge Elbert E. Farman, the United States Consul General at Cairo, as a gift from the Khedive for the United States remaining a friendly neutral as the European powers -France and Britain- maneuvered to secure political control of the Egyptian government. The transportation costs were largely paid for by railroad magnate William Henry Vanderbilt, the eldest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Made of red granite, the obelisk stands about 21 metres high, weighs about 200 tons, and is inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs.

It was originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thutmose III, in 1475 BC.

The granite was brought from the quarries of Aswan near the first cataract of the Nile. The inscriptions were added about 200 years later by Ramesses II to commemorate his military victories.

The obelisks were moved to Alexandria and set up in the Caesareum -a temple built by Cleopatra in honor of Mark Antony or Julius Caesar- by the Romans in 12 BC, during the reign of Augustus, but were toppled some time later. This had the fortuitous effect of burying their faces and so preserving most of the hieroglyphs from the effects of weathering.

The original idea to secure an Egyptian obelisk for New York City came from the March 1877 New York City newspaper accounts of the transporting of the London obelisk.

The newspapers mistakenly attributed to a Mr. John Dixon the 1869 proposal of the Khedive of Egypt, Isma'il Pasha, to give the United States an obelisk as a gift for increased trade. Mr. Dixon, the contractor who, in 1877, arranged the transport of the London obelisk, denied the newspaper accounts.

In March 1877, Mr. Henry G. Stebbins, Commissioner of the Department of Public Parks of the City of New York, undertook to secure the funding to transport the obelisk to New York. However, when railroad magnate William H. Vanderbilt was asked to head the subscription, he offered to finance the project with a donation of more than US$100,000, equivalent to $2,430,313 in 2020.

More information: Central Park NYC

Stebbins then sent two acceptance letters to the Khedive through the Department of State which forwarded them to Judge Farman in Cairo. Realizing that he might be able to secure one of the two remaining upright obelisks -either the mate to the Paris obelisk in Luxor or the London mate in Alexandria- Judge Farman formally asked the Khedive in March 1877, and by May 1877 he had secured the gift in writing.

The obelisk was placed on an obscure site behind the museum. Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, who supervised the movement of the obelisk, William Henry Hulbert, who was involved in early development of the plan, and Frederic Edwin Church, a cofounder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a member of the Department of Public Parks in New York City, selected the site of the obelisk in 1879.

Gorringe wrote, In order to avoid needless discussion of the subject, it was decided to maintain the strictest secrecy as to the location determined on. He noted that the prime advantage of the Knoll was its isolation and that it was the best site to be found inside the park, as it was quite elevated and the foundation could be firmly anchored in bedrock, lest Manhattan suffer some violent convulsion of nature.

The formidable task of moving the obelisk from Alexandria to New York was given to Henry Honychurch Gorringe, a lieutenant commander on leave from the U.S. Navy. The 200-ton granite obelisk was first shifted from vertical to horizontal, nearly crashing to ground in the process. In August 1879 the movement process was suspended for two months because of local protests and legal challenges. Once those were resolved, the obelisk was transported seven miles to Alexandria and then put into the hold of the steamship SS Dessoug, which set sail June 12, 1880. 

 

The Dessoug was heavily modified with a large hole cut into the starboard side of its bow. The obelisk was loaded through the ship's hull by rolling it upon cannonballs.

Even with a broken propeller, the SS Dessoug was able to make the journey to the United States.

The obelisk and its 50-ton pedestal arrived at the Quarantine Station in New York in early July 1880. It took 32 horses hitched in pairs to bring it from the banks of the East River to Central Park.

Railroad ramps and tracks had to be temporarily removed and the ground flattened so that the obelisk could be rolled out of the ship, whose side had been cut open once again for the purpose. The obelisk was carried up the East River and transported to a temporary location off Fifth Avenue.

The final leg of the journey was made by pushing the obelisk with a steam engine across a specially built trestle bridge from Fifth Avenue to its new home on Greywacke Knoll, just across the drive from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It took 112 days to move the obelisk from Quarantine Station to its resting place.

More information: Gothamist

Jesse B. Anthony, Grand Master of Masons in the State of New York, presided as the cornerstone for the obelisk was laid in place with full Masonic ceremony on October 2, 1880.

Over 9,000 Masons paraded up Fifth Avenue from 14th Street to 82nd Street, and it was estimated that over 50,000 spectators lined the parade route. The benediction was presented by R. W. Louis C. Gerstein. The obelisk was righted by a special structure built by Henry Honychurch Gorringe. The official ceremony for erecting the obelisk was held February 22, 1881.

The surface of the stone is heavily weathered, nearly masking the rows of Egyptian hieroglyphs engraved on all sides. Photographs taken near the time the obelisk was erected in the park show that the inscriptions or hieroglyphs, as depicted below with translation, were still quite legible and date first from Thutmosis III (1479–1425 BC) and then nearly 300 years later, Ramesses II the Great (1279–1213 BC).

The stone had stood in the clear dry Egyptian desert air for nearly 3,000 years and had undergone little weathering. In a little more than a century in the climate of New York City, pollution and acid rain have heavily pitted its surfaces.

In 2010, Dr. Zahi Hawass sent an open letter to the president of the Central Park Conservancy and the Mayor of New York City insisting on improved conservation efforts. If they were not able to properly care for the obelisk, he threatened to take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin.

A time capsule buried beneath the obelisk contains an 1870 U.S. census, a Bible, a Webster's Dictionary, the complete works of William Shakespeare, a guide to Egypt, and a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence. A small box was also placed in the capsule by the man who arranged the obelisk's purchase and transportation, but its contents remain unknown.

More information: NYC The Official Guide

My honour was not yielded, 

but conquered merely.

Cleopatra