BIG BEN
Big Ben is the colloquial name of the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster in London, and an informal name for the Great Bell of Westminster, the largest bell in the tower and part of the Great Clock of Westminster.
The clock tower is located at the north-western end of the building, the home of the Houses of Parliament, and contains the famous striking clock and bell.
 NAMING OF BIG BEN
"Big Ben" is the most commonly used name for the Clock Tower, which is itself also known as St Stephen's Tower. That name may have come from St Stephen's Hall, the western wing of the Palace of Westminster, which is the entrance used by visitors wishing to view the proceedings of the Houses of Parliament, and British subjects wishing to lobby their MP.
However, it is more accurate to call the bell "Big Ben". One theory says that the bell named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the Chief Commissioner of Works. A
nother theory suggests that at the time anything which was heaviest of its kind was called "Big Ben" after the then-famous prizefighter Benjamin Caunt, making it a natural name for the bell.
THE CLOCK TOWER
The tower was raised as a part of Charles Barry's design of a new palace, after the old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire on the night of October 16, 1834. The tower is designed in the Victorian Gothic style, and is 96.3 m (316 ft) high.
The tower consists of brickwork with stone cladding, that is 61 m (200 ft) high; the remainder of the tower's height is accounted for by a framed spire of cast iron. The tower is founded on a 15 by 15 m (49 by 49 ft) raft, which is is made of 3 m (9 ft) thick concrete, at a depth of 7 m (23 ft) below ground level. The tower has an estimated weight of 8,667.588 t. The four clock faces are 55 m (180 ft) above ground.
Due to ground conditions present since construction, the tower leans slightly to the north-west, by roughly 220 mm. It also oscillates annually by a few millimetres east and west, due to thermal effects.
THE CLOCK AND ITS FACES
The clock in the tower was once the biggest in the world. One of the specifications of the clock was that it had to strike the first blow for each hour with an accuracy of one second. The clock mechanism was completed by 1854, but the tower was not fully constructed until four years later.
The clock faces and dials were designed by Augustus Pugin. The design is of an elaborate iron framework 23 feet in diameter supporting 312 individual pieces of opal glass, rather like a stained glass window. Some of the glass pieces may be removed for the purpose of inspecting the centre of the hands. The Roman numerals (each 2 feet high) are unusual in displaying 'IV' rather than the usual 'IIII' on clocks. The surround of the dials is heavly gilded. At the base of each clock face in gilt letters is the Latin inscription 'DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM' which means 'Lord save our Queen Victoria I'.
The name Big Ben was first given to a 16-ton hour bell, cast in 1856. Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard. But the bell cracked under the striking hammer, and its metal was recast as the 13.8 ton bell which is in use today. The new bell was mounted in the tower in 1858 alongside four quarter-hour bells.
On September 7, 1859, the clock became fully operational. Yet less than a month later, the hour bell developed a crack due to the strain of being struck repeatedly by the hammer (the same hammer which broke its predecessor). For two years, the largest of the quarter bells was used as a substitute. Then the hour bell was rotated so that the hammer no longer came into contact with the cracked surface, and the bell became operational again in 1862.
The mechanisms of the clock and chimes have been overhauled several times since then.
THE GREAT BELL OF WESTMINSTER
The bell weighs 13.762 t (13 tons 10 cwt 99 lb or 30,339 lb), with a striking hammer weighing 203 kg (4 cwt), and was originally tuned to E. There is delay of 5 seconds between strikes. It is a common misconception that Big Ben is the heaviest bell in Britain. In fact, it is only the third heaviest, the second heaviest being Great George found at Liverpool Cathedral at 14 tons 15 cwt 2 qtr 2 lb (33,098 lb or 15.013 t) and the heaviest being Great Paul found at St. Paul's Cathedral at 16 tons 14 cwt 2 qtr 19 lb (37,483 lb or 17.002 t).
The original tower designs demanded a 14-ton bell to be struck with a 6-cwt (300-kg) hammer. A bell was produced by John Warner and Sons in 1856, weighing 16 tons. However, this cracked under test in the Palace Yard. The contract for the bell was then given to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, who in 1858 re-cast the bell into the 13.8 t bell used today. It too started to crack under the hammer, and a legal battle arose. After two years of having the Great Bell out of commission, the 6 cwt (300 kg) hammer was replaced with a 4 cwt (200 kg) hammer, and the bell itself was turned 90° so the crack would not develop any further, and it came back into use in 1862. However, the crack, now filled, and the turn meant that it no longer struck a true E.
OTHER BELLS
Along with the main bell, the belfry houses four quarter bells which play the Westminster Quarters, derived from Handel's Messiah, on the quarter hours. The C note in the chime is repeated twice in quick succession, faster than the chiming train can draw back the hammers, so the C bell uses two separate hammers.
SIMILAR TURRET CLOCKS
A 20 foot (6 m) metal replica of the clock tower, known as Little Ben, complete with working clock, stands on a traffic island close to Victoria Station. Several turret clocks around the world are inspired by the look of the Great Clock, including the clock tower of the Gare de Lyon in Paris and the Peace Tower of the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa.
RELIABILITY OF BIG BEN
The clock is famous for its reliability. This is due to the skill of its designer, the lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison, later Lord Grimthorpe. As the clock mechanism, created to Denison's specification by clockmaker Edward John Dent, was completed before the tower itself was finished, Denison had time to experiment with the clock. Instead of using the deadbeat escapement and remontoire as originally designed, Denison invented the double three-legged gravity escapement.
This escapement provides the best separation between pendulum and clock mechanism. Together with an enclosed, wind-proof box sunk beneath the clockroom, the Great Clock's pendulum is well isolated from external factors like snow, ice and pigeons on the clock hands, and keeps remarkably accurate time.
The idiom of putting a penny on, with the meaning of slowing down, sprung from the method of fine-tuning the clock's pendulum by adding or subtracting penny coins. Even to this day, old pennies, phased out of British currency by the 1971 decimalisation, are used.
Despite heavy bombing, it ran accurately throughout The Blitz. It slowed down on New Year's Eve 1962 due to heavy snow, causing it to chime in the new year 10 minutes late.
The clock had its first and only major breakdown in 1976. The chiming mechanism broke due to metal fatigue on 5 August 1976, and was reactivated again on 9 May 1977. During this time BBC Radio Four had to make do with the pips.
It stopped on 30 April 1997, the day before the general election, and again three weeks later.
On Friday, 27 May 2005 the clock stopped ticking for 90 minutes from 10.07pm, possibly due to hot weather (temperatures in London had reached an unseasonal 31.8°C/90°F). It resumed keeping time, but stalled again at 10.20 p.m. and remained still for about 90 minutes before starting up again
CULTURE OF BIG BEN
Big Ben is a focus of New Year celebrations in the England, with radio and TV stations tuning to its chimes to welcome the 'official' start of the year. Similarly, on Remembrance Day, the chimes of Big Ben are broadcast to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and the start of two minutes' silence.
For many years ITN's "News at Ten" began with an opening sequence which featured Big Ben with the chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines. This has since been dropped, but all ITV1 and ITV News Channel bulletins still use a graphic based on the Westminster clock face. Big Ben can also be heard striking the hour before some news bulletins on BBC Radio 4 (currently 6pm and midnight, plus 10pm on Sundays) and the BBC World Service, a practice that began on December 31, 1923.
The clock features in John Buchan's spy novel The Thirty-Nine Steps and makes for a memorable climax in Don Sharp's 1978 film version, although not in Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 original adaptation. A similar scene is recreated in the 2003 film, Shanghai Knights which culminates with Jackie Chan hanging from the hands of the clock. In Aliens of London, the fourth episode of the 2005 series of Doctor Who, an alien spacecraft crashes through the clock, destroying it on the way to a splashdown in the River Thames. The clock also appears in The Empty Child in the same series. The clock also features in the climax of the animated film Basil, the Great Mouse Detective.
An earlier film climax on the clock face of Big Ben appears in Will Hay's 1943 film My Learned Friend, although the scene is more slapstick than thriller.
From Wikipedia.org
 LONDON Hotels & Accommodation
LONDON TOURS, TRAVEL AND ACTIVITIES
HOME •
ENGLAND •
DISCOVER •
London •
Big Ben
|
Looking for something specific?
QUICK LINKS FOR ENGLAND TRAVEL:
|
ENGLAND HOTELS:
LONDON HOTELS:
ALL London Hotels,
... see all London Hotels
|
ENGLAND TOURS:
LONDON TOURS & TRAVEL:
Adventure Tours,
Attractions,
Culinary Tours,
Cycling,
Day Tours,
Dinner Tours,
Extended Tours,
Night Cruises,
Overnight Tours,
Rail Tours,
Sightseeing Tours,
Sightseeing Cruises,
Sightseeing Passes,
Theatre Dinner Packages,
Transfers,
Walking Tours,
... see all London Tours
|
DISCOVER ENGLAND:
LONDON:
Attractions,
Cathedrals & Churches,
Museums,
Palaces & Stately Homes,
Parks & Gardens,
Squares & Monuments,
|
ATTRACTIONS:
Big Ben,
London Eye,
Royal Albert Hall,
Tower Bridge,
|
The face of the Great Clock of Westminster. A 5 foot 4 inch person (1.63 m) has been inserted into the picture at correct scale. The hour hand is 9 feet (2.7 m) long and the minute hand is 14 feet (4.3 m) long
The Clock Tower at dusk, with
The London Eye in the background.
BEJAMIN HILL:
The Right Honourable Benjamin Hall, 1st Baron Llanover, PC (1802-1867) was a civil engineer and politician.
The son of industrialist, Benjamin Hall, he became MP for Monmouth in 1832 and held the seat for five years. He was instrumental in the passing of the Truck Act in 1831. He was created a baronet in 1838, and appointed Commissioner for Works in 1855. In this post, he ordered the casting of the bell nicknamed Big Ben (in his honour) in 1856. It now hangs in The Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament in London.
Through his wife, Lady Llanover, Hall inherited the Llanover estate in Monmouthshire, and in 1859 was created 1st Baron Llanover.
|
WHITECHAPEL BELL FOUNDRY:
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry is a bell foundry based in the Whitechapel district of east London. It is Britain's oldest manufacturing company, having been established in 1570 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and has operated continuously since then. The history of the foundry however reaches back to Master Founder Robert Chamberlain in 1420 during the reign of King Henry V.
The foundry's main business is in church bells and their fittings and accessories, although it also manufactures single tolling bells and carillon bells.
The foundry has produced a number of famous bells, including the original (1752) Liberty Bell and Big Ben in the Palace of Westminster (both cracked). The latter, at 13½ tons, was cast in 1858 and is the largest bell ever cast at the foundry. Whitechapel also supplied peals of 10 bells for Guildford Cathedral in Surrey, in the years following the Second World War, and for the National Cathedral in Washington DC in 1964.
Churches which have used Whitechapel bell Foundry include St Dunstan's, Mayfield and St Dunstan's, Stepney
The foundry's premises are now a Grade II listed building and cannot be changed, and include a cross-section of Big Ben surrounding the entrance door.
|
|
