Lloyd's building consists of three main towers and three service towers around a central, rectangular space. Its core is the large Underwriting Room on the ground floor, which houses the Lutine Bell within the Rostrum. Also on the first floor is loss book which for 300 years has had entries of significant losses entered by quill. The Underwriting Room (often simply called "the Room") is overlooked by galleries, forming a high atrium lit naturally through a huge barrel-vaulted glass roof. The first four galleries open onto the atrium space, and are connected by escalators through the middle of the structure. The higher
HMS Lutine (1779) had considered the shoals impassable. The depth of water also constantly changes, and this has caused much of the difficulty in salvage attempts. "Lutine" was wrecked in a shallow channel called the IJzergat, which has now completely disappeared, between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. Immediately after "Lutine" sank, the wreck began silting up, forcing an end to salvage attempts by 1804. By chance, it was discovered in 1857 that the wreck was again uncovered, but covered again in 1859. The wreck was probably partially uncovered between 1915 and 1916, although no salvage was attempted because of World War I.