Big Ben
Big Ben isn't the tower, and it isn't the clock. It's a cracked 13-tonne bell that has been getting away with it since 1859.
Published
Quick Facts
- Location
- Palace of Westminster, Westminster, London
- Built or opened
- Clock started 31 May 1859
- Height
- About 96 metres (316 ft), with 334 steps to the belfry
- Official name of the tower
- Elizabeth Tower (renamed in 2012; formerly the Clock Tower)
- Big Ben itself
- The Great Bell, about 13.7 tonnes, cast at Whitechapel in 1858
- Clock dials
- Roughly 7 metres across, with a minute hand about 4.2 metres long
- Architects
- Charles Barry, with detailing by Augustus Pugin
- Clockmakers
- Edmund Beckett Denison (design), E. J. Dent and Frederick Dent (construction)
The famous name that belongs to a bell
Strictly speaking, Big Ben is the Great Bell hanging in the tower, not the tower and not the clock face. The tower is the Elizabeth Tower, renamed in 2012 for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. Before that it was simply the Clock Tower. The nickname stuck so thoroughly that almost everyone uses it for the whole thing. Nobody minds, least of all the bell, which has been striking the hours for over 160 years. Where the name came from is still argued over. One theory credits Sir Benjamin Hall, the commissioner of works whose name was supposedly inscribed on the bell. Another points to the heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt. Both are plausible, and neither has ever been settled.
A tower born from a fire
In October 1834 a blaze destroyed most of the old Palace of Westminster. It started when a stockpile of tally sticks, the old Exchequer's wooden accounting records, was burned in the heating system. Parliament needed a new home. Charles Barry won the design competition with a Gothic Revival palace. Augustus Pugin supplied much of the intricate detail, and the clock tower is widely seen as his masterpiece. The clock was just as ambitious. Parliament demanded a timekeeper accurate to within a second, which was a tall order in the 1850s. Edmund Beckett Denison, a barrister and clock expert, designed the mechanism, and Dent's firm built it. It started running on 31 May 1859.
The bell that cracked, twice over
The first Great Bell was cast at Stockton-on-Tees in 1856 and shipped to London. It cracked during testing, and a new one was cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1858. The replacement hauled up the tower, rang out, and then cracked too, within a few months of entering service. It was silenced for years while the arguments raged. The eventual fix was cheap and cheerful: turn the bell a quarter turn so the hammer struck a fresh spot, and use a lighter hammer. Big Ben has been cracked ever since. That flaw gives the bell the slightly sour, instantly recognisable tone that the world knows.
Pennies on the pendulum
The clock is regulated in a wonderfully low-tech way. The pendulum is about four metres long and weighs around 300 kilograms, and the clock keepers adjust its timekeeping by adding or removing old pre-decimal pennies from a small tray on it. Each penny changes the clock's rate by about two-fifths of a second per day. It is a tiny change, and it works. The tower also leans very slightly, a result of ground movement over the years, though you would never notice it by eye. And the clock carried on through the Second World War, even when bombing damaged the Palace of Westminster in 1941.
A voice for the nation
The BBC first broadcast the bongs on 31 December 1923, and they have been the sound of British news and national moments ever since. At New Year, and on Remembrance Sunday, the strikes carry particular weight. In 2017 the bell was largely silenced so that a major restoration could begin. The work ran until 2022 and included repairs to the clock, the dials and the tower's masonry, with the clock hands repainted in a dark blue. At night, a lantern above the clock face glows whenever either House of Parliament is sitting after dark, a tradition dating back to the 1880s.
Seeing it for yourself
The classic view is from Westminster Bridge, with the tower rising above the river bank. For a different angle, try the South Bank opposite, where you can fit the whole Palace of Westminster in the frame. Look up at the dials, with their gilded detail and Latin inscription around the base of the clock. The inscription is a prayer for Queen Victoria. If you are lucky, you will be standing nearby when the hour strikes. Going inside the tower is possible too. Public guided tours can be booked online through Parliament and are open to UK and overseas visitors aged 11 or over. UK residents can also apply for a limited number of free tours through an MP or a member of the House of Lords.
Notable people
- Charles Barry
- Augustus Pugin
- Edmund Beckett Denison
- Edward John Dent
- Frederick Dent
- Benjamin Hall
- Benjamin Caunt
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