Harrods is that rare thing -- an institution that has lasted from the 19th century into the 21st, consistently reinventing itself with the result that it becomes all but unbearable to shop anywhere else.
The store covers five acres in London's Knightsbridge neighborhood, with seven stories, 5 million square feet of store space, 330 departments, 5,000 employees, seven stories of storerooms and offices underground, and a level of taste and sophistication from its clothing to its furniture departments that allows visitors practically to shop blindfolded and come away with fabulous things every time.
In addition to its classic food halls, fashion departments, fine jewelry, high end watches, toys, electronics, and home décor, the store now features a 7th floor gallery of perfume brands where you could easily spend 5,000 to 15,000 pounds on the finest scents in the world.
While all of these treasures are on view to every customer, symbolizing the store's motto of "All Things For All People Everywhere," one of the most unique services the store offers is most likely unknown to all but a few of its shoppers.
I'm talking about the Safe Deposit at basement level where, since the current building's creation in 1897, customers have kept safe deposit boxes and "strong rooms" where they keep money, collectibles, art, antiques, and other valuables as safe as in any bank.
The clientele for the service includes royals from around the world, VIPs, celebrities, movie stars, and the ultra-rich who have often passed their Harrods safe deposit boxes and strong rooms from one generation to the next.
The same Glasgow firm that built the ironclad warships of a modernizing Royal Navy constructed the strong rooms, doors, and walls of the basement area.
These fixtures -- the doors alone weigh in the tons -- were so heavy that they were shipped down from Scotland and then placed in the basement of the store, which was then built on top of the bank-like area.
The décor is unchanged from the earliest days, with the same green and gold for which Harrods is famous, and the same furniture selected when the Safe Deposit opened in 1896.
No photography is permitted, as a security measure. Harrods has repeatedly turned down requests to do movies and fashion shoots inside the Safe Deposit's Victorian steel walls.
The Safe Deposit is the domain of Harrods former director of security Gary Parkins, now completing his 40th year of service to the store. In his prior role, he discreetly escorted a firmament of royals, politicians, and VIPs when they came to shop.
When Parkins moved from security to head of the Safe Deposit seven and a half years ago, his sense of probity and trustworthiness came with him, along with a familiarity with Harrods VIP customers stretching back decades.
At a private tour of the Safe Deposit, Parkins invites his guests to use the actual Victorian keys manufactured back in 1896 to open the two-ton doors as well as a strong room and an actual safe deposit box filled, to the delight of visitors, with chocolate in gold foil.
The store constructed a waiting room for ladies, where they could sit while the men handled their financial affairs, only to discover that women were the first customers and have been regular customers of the Safe Deposit for the past 120 years.
The feeling of visiting the Safe Deposit is akin to stepping directly into Victorian London. The original phone line still hangs from a wall, and the working phone on Parkins' desk is a rotary model dating back decades.
Parkins is set to retire this year after 40 years of service to Harrods.
"I'm very good at moving on," he says. "I've got plenty of hobbies."
One hobby is studying the history of Harrods. He identified names of 21 employees who gave their lives in World War II yet had not been honored on the store's memorial plaque; those names can be found there now, thanks to his efforts.
He also recounts with delight a letter he found written from the store to a Swiss customer during the first week of September, 1939, explaining that due to "hostilities" which had just broken out - that would be World War II - the customer's purchases would be slightly delayed but would indeed arrive shortly.
Parkins says the store has asked him to remain at the Safe Deposit two days a week after his official retirement, which means that the good and the great who rely on Harrods not just for shopping but for security will enjoy his reassuring mien for years to come.
There will always be an England, and there will always be the Victorian Safe Deposit beneath Harrods, bestowing safety and security on customers who keep their cash and precious possessions locked away behind its two-ton doors.