"Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe -- 'cept maybe Hogwarts."
     -- Rubeus Hagrid

Part way down Diagon Alley, near its intersection with Knockturn Alley, is a tall building constructed of white marble. This is Gringotts Wizarding Bank, an imposing place guarded by goblins, where witches and wizards keep their money and other valuables in vaults located miles and miles below ground. It is rumored that the goblins of Gringotts employ the likes of dragons to guard some of the high security vaults. 

You approach the burnished bronze front doors of Gringotts up steps of white marble. A goblins stands guard here, dressed in a uniform of scarlet and gold. You pass through the front doors into an entrance chamber facing another set of doors. These are silver and are engraved with the following rhyme:

Enter, stranger, but take heed Of what awaits the sin of greed For those who take, but do not earn, Must pay most dearly in their turn. So if you seek beneath our floors A treasure that was never yours, Thief, you have been warned, beware Of finding more than treasure there.

Two more goblins guard these doors which they will open to let you pass into the main hall. This large chamber has a long counter with a hundred goblins, sitting on high stools, hard at work counting and weighing coins, writing in ledger books, and examining precious stones. It is possible to exchange Muggle money for Wizarding coins at Gringotts.

There are a large number of doors off this main chamber, guarded by still more goblins, which admit one to narrow stone caverns which lead to the vaults far below ground. These passages are lit by torches and slope steeply downward. A goblin serves as a guide into this labyrinth, piloting a small cart which rides on narrow tracks set in the stone floor.

The vaults, of which there are more than seven hundred, are opened by various means. The typical ones use small keys. The high security vaults have enchantments placed on their doors. The goblin strokes the door to make it melt away; if anyone but a Gringotts goblin tries it, however, they will be sucked through the door and trapped inside the vault. Dumbledore's high security vault is number 713. Sirius Black's vault is number 711 (British edition of PA). Harry's vault is number 687 (SS/f).

One of the goblins working at Gringotts is named Griphook. He escorted Harry and Hagrid to the vaults on July 31, 1991. (SS)

Gringotts has paid curse breakers whose job it is to retrieve treasure from places like the pyramids of Egypt. Bill Weasley is a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts (SS6, PA1). 

The Goblins of Gringotts will change Muggle money for Wizarding money. Rowling says, "Those goblins are sneaky people. They manage to put the Muggle money back into circulation. They are like "fences" --British slang, do you understand it?" (AOL)

(SS5, CS4, PA4)

Where does the name Gringotts come from? Rowling has never said, although it seems likely that there is an intentional connection to the word "ingot" which is a word for a large block of precious metal, such as gold.