5 — Five Pounds
The artwork
Front: Queen Elizabeth II at right, coiffed and earringed, set against a fine engine-turned ground with the value 5 repeated in tiny numerals. The promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five pounds sits beneath the Bank of England heading, above the four heraldic shields of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and a view of the Bank's own Threadneedle Street facade. A gold-foil Elizabeth Tower rises in the clear window, with a metallic crown patch above.
Back: Sir Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, jowled and unsmiling, from the wartime portrait sitting — arguably the best-known image of him. Behind, the Palace of Westminster in brown and the Elizabeth Tower with its hands at three o'clock; the medal of his 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature fills the upper left. His facsimile signature and the line "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" run along the foot.
In circulation
The Churchill fiver entered circulation on 13 September 2016 as the Bank of England's first polymer note, retiring the paper Elizabeth Fry £5, which lost legal tender status in May 2017. It remains current, now joined by £5 notes bearing the portrait of King Charles III issued from June 2024.
Details
- CurrencyPound
- DenominationFive Pounds
- Collectedon the United Kingdom journeys, 1991–2016
- IssuerBank of England, London
- SeriesPolymer £5, 'Queen and Churchill' (2016)
- SignatureVictoria Cleland, Chief Cashier
- SecurityClear polymer window with gold-foil Elizabeth Tower and a see-through £ symbol; green foil crown patch; copyright dates 2015 and 2016
- Dimensions125 × 65 mm