Bank of England, Lothbury EC2

The other pair of Lothbury Ladies stand in front of cornucopias and piles of money, repeating themes on the Bank. Wheeler was slightly queasy about the cornucopias, feeling that they sent the wrong signal at a time of financial crisis (Britain had just been forced off the gold standard).
He wrote to the architect, Sir Herbert Baker, who clearly told him not to be silly.
The current crisis shows that Wheeler was right to be sensitive about this - the image of the Bank pouring our money all over the City is one that is all too thought-provoking in these days of quantitative easing.

Bank of England, Lothbury EC2

The back of the Bank of England, facing Lothbury, has four statues of females known as the Lothbury Ladies. The two on the western pavillion hold children, a boy and a girl.
They are difficult to picture because Lothbury is such a narrow street.

Bank of England, Threadneedle Street EC2

The three figures to the right of the central arch. The males are standing in front of rolled-up banners, presumably representing the protection of the state.

Bank of England, Threadneedle Street EC2

The first of the caryatids-that-aren-'t-really. Note she looks away from the entrance when the telamones-that-aren't-really look in.
The inverted cornucopia makes her a great symbol of Quantitative Easing. That's our money she's pouring out onto a grateful City.

Bank of England, Threadneedle Street EC2

This guy has chunky keys behind his head and holds a mighty chain.

Bank of England, Threadneedle Street EC2

The new Bank's main portico has a rusticated base with a big entrance arch that makes no sense because it opens onto the roof of Soane's old building.

On either side of the arch are six statues by Charles Wheeler, conventionally referred to as caryatids (female) and telemones (male), but they aren't really because caryatids and telemones have to support parts of a building on their heads and these don't. They are more like buttresses really.
The male figures represent custodianship, according to Herbert Baker's diaries. They carry chains, keys or banners.
Pictures will be posted over the next days, starting from the left.
The first carries a bunch of keys in his hands as well as hanging on his belt. A pair of padlocks are visible behind his head.

Bank of England, Threadneedle Street EC2

The Lady of the Bank is the successor to a statue of Britannia that stood on the Soane building, which had inspired the Bank of England's nickname 'the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street'.

Charles Wheeler's dynamic figure of girl seated on the globe with her cape billowing behind and a shower of gold coins to one side emphasises the world-wide reach of the Bank. She holds a model of the Bank itself, like those medieval statues of bishops holding models of their cathedrals.

The statue was the subject of attacks from all quarters from the moment it was unveiled in 1930. The Evening Standard wrote:

"Miss Threadneedle Street is wearing a permanent wave and not a great deal else...[she] appears in the act of removing her bath-robe; but in place of the cake of soap that she should by rights be fondling she is dandling on her knee what looks like a small Greek temple. This may be her bath salts - they are put up very elaborately these days - or again it may be a toy savings bank...For the rest, the lady has a very hard eye, a disagreeable mouth, and hands only a shade less elephantiasic than Rima's own."

Notice how Epstein manages to get into every public row about sculpture, even when it is nothing to do with him? Rima was already 10 years old and it still rankled.

A group of stockholders waged a vigorous campaign against Wheeler's work, calling them 'very extraordinary monstrosities' but luckily got nowhere. The statues are the only redeeming feature of the building. 

Bank of England, Threadneedle Street EC2

The Bank of England is one of those buildings I try to avert my eyes from. The scandalous rebuilding in the 1920s and 30s was a grievous loss of the master-work of one of our greatest architects, Sir John Soane.
The perpetrator was Sir Herbert Baker, who kept most of Soane's curtain walls but added a lumpen office block above in his usual soft classical style.
Luckily, Baker employed his favourite sculptor, Sir Charles Wheeler, and his work is the building's only redeeming feature.
This gilded bronze figure of the Spirit of the Winds stands on the cupola of the Tivoli Corner. Despite being egregiously female, she is usually referred to as Ariel, something for which we have Baker to thank - he was the first to refer to her as an 'Arielesque figure'.
The Bank itself described her in heavyweight PR-speak as 'the symbol of the Dynamic Spirit of the Bank which carries Credit and Trust over the wide world.'