The Clock Tower, often mistakenly known as Big Ben (the nickname of the Great Bell housed within the Clock Tower)
The Clock Tower is the world's largest four-faced, chiming turret clock. The
structure is situated at the north-eastern end of the Houses of Parliament
building in Westminster, London. It is often
mistakenly called "Big Ben" — which is actually the main bell housed within the Clock Tower.[1][2][3] The Clock Tower has also been referred to as St Stephen's Tower or The
Tower of Big Ben or Big Tom. However, St Stephen's Tower is actually towards the middle of the Palace, and is the main
point of entry for attendees of debates and committees.[4]
Structure of the clock
The tower was raised as a part of Charles Barry's design for a new palace, after the
old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire on the night of 16 October, 1834. However, although Barry was the chief architect of the
palace, he turned to Augustus Pugin for the design of the clock tower,
which resembles earlier Pugin designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall. The design for Big Ben was, in fact, Pugin's last
design before his final descent into madness and death, and Pugin himself wrote, at the time of Barry's last visit to him to
collect the drawings: "I never worked so hard in my life for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all the designs for finishing his
bell tower & it is beautiful" (Rosemary Hill, God's Architect: Pugin & the Building of Romantic Britain (2007) p
482). The tower is designed in Pugin's celebrated Gothic revival style, and
is metres ( ft) high.
The first metres ( ft) of the structure is the Clock Tower, consisting of brickwork with stone cladding; the remainder of the tower's height is a framed spire of cast
iron. The tower is founded on a metres ( ft) square raft, made of metres ( ft) thick concrete, at a
depth of metres ( ft) below ground level. The four clock faces are metres ( ft) above ground. The interior
volume of the tower is 4,650 cubic metres (164,200 cubic feet).
Due to ground conditions present since construction, the tower leans slightly to the north-west, by roughly
220 millimetres (8.66 in) at the clock face, giving an inclination of approximately 1/250.[1] Due to
thermal effects it oscillates annually by a few millimetres east and west.
Clock faces
The clock faces were once large enough to allow the Clock Tower to be the largest four-faced clock in the world, but have
since been outdone by the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The builders of the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower did not add chimes to the clock, so the Great Clock of Westminster still holds the title of the "world's
largest four-faced chiming clock." The clock mechanism itself was completed by 1854, but the tower
was not fully constructed until four years later in 1858.
The face of the Great Clock of Westminster. A 1.63 metre (5 ft 4 in) person has been inserted into the
picture at correct scale. The hour hand is 2.7 metres (9 ft) long and the minute hand is 4.3 metres (14 ft)
long.
The clock and dials were designed by Augustus Pugin. The clock faces
are set in an iron framework metres ( ft) in diameter, supporting 312 pieces of opal glass, rather like a
stained glass window. Some of the glass pieces may be removed for inspection of the hands.
The surround of the dials is heavily gilded. At the base of each clock face in gilt letters is
the Latin inscription: "DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM", which means 'O
Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the
First'.
The clock became operational on 7 September, 1859.
During World War II, the Palace of Westminster was hit by German bombing, destroying the Victorian House of Commons
and causing damage to two of the clockfaces as well as sections of the tower's steeped roof.
The Great Bell
The main bell, officially known as the Great Bell, is the largest bell in the tower and part of the Great Clock of
Westminster. The bell is better known by the nickname Big Ben, which is often mistakenly applied to the Clock
Tower.[1][2][3]
The name Big Ben was given to a 14.5 tonne (16 ton) hour bell, cast on 10 April 1856 in
Stockton-on-Tees by Warner's of Cripplegate. The bell was never officially named, but
the legend on it records that the commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin
Hall, was responsible for the order. Another theory for the origin of the name is that the bell may have been named after
a contemporary heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt. It is thought that the bell was originally to
be called "Victoria" or "Royal Victoria" in honour of Queen Victoria [2], but that an MP suggested the nickname during a Parliamentary debate; the comment is not recorded in Hansard.
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 at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as the 13.76 tonne (13.54 ton
(long), 15.17 ton (short) bell, which stands at a height of 2.2 metres with a
diameter of 2.9 metres, and it is still in use today. The new bell, which chimes on A, was
mounted in the tower alongside four quarter-hour bells, the ring of bells that ring the familiar changes.[5]
Other Bells
Along with the main bell, the belfry houses four quarter
bells which play the Westminster Quarters on the quarter hours. The four
quarter bells are G sharp, F sharp, E, and B (see note). They play a 20-chime sequence, 1-4 at
quarter past, 5-12 at half past, 13-20 and 1-4 at quarter to, and 5-20 on the hour. Because the low bell (B) is struck twice in
quick succession, there is not enough time to pull a hammer back, and it is supplied with two wrench hammers on opposite sides of
the bell.
Similar turret clocks
A 6 metre (20 ft) metal replica of the clock tower, known as Little Ben and
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 Canadian Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.
A clock tower similar to Big Ben is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial
Clock Tower of the University of Birmingham, England. Often referred to
as "Old Tom" or "Old Joe", it is around three quarters of the size of Big Ben. Its four faces are each seventeen feet in
diameter.
Baby Big Ben is the Welsh version of Big Ben at the pierhead in Cardiff. Its mechanism is almost identical to the one which powers the Big Ben clock in London.[6]
There are other replicas, one of the finest is a two-third exact replica of the movement made by Dent located in the Queens
Royal College Trinidad. There is another in Zimbabwe.
Reliability
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. 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, sprang from the method of fine-tuning the clock's
pendulum. The pendulum carries a small stack of old penny coins. Adding or subtracting coins has the effect of minutely altering the
position of the bob's centre of mass, the effective length of the pendulum rod and hence the rate at which the pendulum swings.
Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 2/5th of one second per day.
Despite heavy bombing the clock 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 4 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 at 10.07 pm,
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 pm and remained still for about 90 minutes before starting up again [3].
On 29 October 2005, the mechanism was stopped for
approximately 33 hours so that the clock and its chimes could be worked on. It was the lengthiest maintenance shutdown in 22
years [4].
There were other short stoppages but the practice of the publicity department of the Houses of Parliament to attribute
problems to weather and other reasons outside of their control makes it difficult to be sure why. Ex employees of Thwaites &
Reed who looked after the clock for 30 years say problems were caused by a major overhaul for the millennium being shelved and
never done. Thwaites & Reed say they have the exact details of what was needed, but they seem reluctant to make public their
records even though their older records are on loan to the Guildhall Library in London for everyone to see.
In 2005, a terrorist manual was found in the home of Abu Hamza al-Masri, marking
Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel
Tower as terrorist targets. In his trial at The Old Bailey in 2006 he denied all
knowledge of their being targets.
The south clock face being cleaned on August 11th, 2007
Big Ben's "Quarter Bells" were taken out of commission for four weeks starting at 0700 hrs GMT on 5 June 2006
[5] , as a bearing holding one of the quarter bells was damaged from years of wear and needed to be removed
for repairs. During this period, BBC Radio 4 broadcast recordings of British bird song
followed by the pips in place of the usual chimes[6].
On August 11, 2007, Big Ben went silent and temporarily also
stopped keeping time for maintenance that lasted 1 month. The bearings that help sound the chime on each hour were replaced, for
the first time since installation[7]. During the maintenance works, the clock was not driven by the original mechanism, but by an electric motor. Once
again, BBC Radio 4 had to make do with the pips during this time.
Culture
ITV News opening titles featuring a computer-generated version of the Big Ben clock face
The Clock Tower is a focus of New Year celebrations in the United Kingdom, with radio and TV stations tuning to its chimes to welcome the 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 years ITN's "News at Ten" began with an opening sequence
which featured the Clock Tower and Big Ben with the chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines. The Big Ben chimes
are still used today during the headlines and all ITV News bulletins 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 (6pm and midnight, plus 10pm on Sundays) and the BBC World
Service, a practice that began on 31 December 1923. The
chimes are transmitted live via a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected by line to Broadcasting House.
Big Ben can be used in the classroom to demonstrate the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound. If a
person visits London and stands at the bottom of the clock tower, they will hear the chimes of Big Ben approximately one-sixth of
a second later than the bell being struck (assuming a bell height of 55 metres). However, using a microphone placed near the
bell and transmitting the sound to a far away destination by radio (for instance New York
City or Hong Kong), that location will hear the bell before the person on the ground.
In fact, if the recipient were to echo the sound back to the observer on the ground, the bell would be heard on the radio before
the natural sound reached the observer. (Example: New York City is 5,562 kilometres (3,456 mi) from London, and radio
waves will reach New York in 0.018552 seconds; round trip is 0.037105 seconds, compared to 0.1616 seconds for the
natural sound to reach the ground.)
Londoners who live an appropriate distance from the Clock Tower and Big Ben can, by means of listening to the chimes both live
and on the radio or television, hear the bell strike thirteen times on New Year's Eve. This is possible due to the one strike
offset between live and electronically-transmitted chimes. Guests are invited to count the chimes aloud as the radio is gradually
turned down.
An image of the clock tower was also used as the logo for London Films.
In Japan, Big Ben's chime is used as the chime for school bells from kindergarten to university.[8]
Cultural references
The clock has become a symbol for the United Kingdom and London, particularly in the visual media. When a television or film-maker wishes to quickly convey to
a non-UK audience a generic location in Britain, a popular way to do so is to show an image of the Clock Tower, often with a
Routemaster bus or Hackney carriage in the
foreground. This gambit is less often used in the United Kingdom itself, as it would suggest to most British people a specific
location in London, which may not be the intention.
The sound of the clock chiming has also been used this way in audio media, but as the Westminster Quarters are heard from other clocks and other devices, the unique nature of this
particular sound has been considerably diluted.
The Clock Tower in popular culture
- The structure has been shown in films such as The Thirty Nine
Steps, V for Vendetta (which pictured the clock tower
graphically exploding), Shanghai Knights, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, "102 Dalmatians"
(Acted), Basil, The Great Mouse Detective, From Hell, Independence Day (seen on TV),
My Learned Friend, Mars Attacks!,
National Lampoon's European Vacation, 28 Days Later, The Avengers, Gorgo, The War of the Worlds, and
Flushed Away. It has also been shown in television shows such as Futurama, The Simpsons, Inspector Gadget, Lost, Doctor Who (particularly in The Dalek Invasion of
Earth, "Aliens of London", "The Empty
Child" and "The Christmas Invasion"), The Prisoner (particularly in the episode The Chimes of Big
Ben), and Captain Scarlet.
- The sound has been featured in plays such as Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd, first heard as the title
character arrives back into a London port and recurring throughout the piece, helping to maintain a sense of location.
- In Mars Attacks! the tower was destroyed by the Martians
- In Supertramp 's song Fool's
Overture, you can hear Big Ben chime the hour in a Blitz-inspired montage.
- The clock tower has appeared in Kingdom Hearts, part of the level relating to
Disney's adaptation of J. M. Barrie's
Peter Pan.
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, the design of the Clock Tower
Prison card is based on the tower.
- In the James Bond Computer Game James Bond 007: From Russia with Love, the tower housing Big Ben features
primarily at the end of the first level.
- In the James Bond film Thunderball, Ernst Stavro Blofeld tells MI6 to have Big Ben
ring seven times at six o'clock as an agreement to SPECTRE's terms.
- Users of the first edition of the computer game Command & Conquer
had the option of destroying the clock tower - among other international landmarks - seen in a digital video.
- Likewise, the clock tower makes an appearance in the London mission in the Allied campaign in Command and Conquer: Yuri's Revenge.
- 2007's Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars would once
again feature the clock tower in the franchise, as a target in the initial mission of the unlockable Scrin campaign.
- In the computer game version of Jeff Wayne's The War of the
Worlds by Rage, the Houses of Parliament and the Clock Tower (housing Big Ben) are the main base for the humans. When
the building is being destroyed, the last thing left standing is the Clock Tower before the total destruction of it and the fall
of London. At the end an FMV clip shows a tripod fighting machine destroying the Clock Tower hi .
- The tower also features in the popular PC game Sim City 4 as one of the landmarks which the player is able to place into a city.
- The tower is pictured on the cover of The Who's rock album The Who Sings My Generation.
- The tower appeared briefly in the 1996 movie Independence Day,
appearing underneath the large alien destroyer
- In the video game Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, there are two stages
that are clearly based on the city of London during the Victorian Era. Although the second stage ("13th street") is more obvious,
featuring a background distinctly based on Westminster Palace without the clock tower (the spire of St Stephen's Tower in the
centre of the palace is clearly replicated while swapping heights with Victoria Tower,
for example), the first stage ("City of Haze") features vague shadows (a slightly darker shade of grey than the sky) of a palace
in the background, and one of these shadows resembles the shape of the clock tower.
- A similar clock tower named "Bigger Ben" can be found in an area called New Leaf City in the game MapleStory.
- In the 2003 film Reign of Fire, the tower is prominently featured on
the film's box cover in the background while British AH-64 Apaches do battle with a horde
of dragons, who are destroying London. The tower is destroyed in the film itself, and in several scenes depicting the ruins of
London, the tower is still standing but has been completely burned out.
- In the 2007 film Flood (film), the tower, along with other London landmarks, was shown
being hit with a massive surge of water.
References
External links
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Coordinates:
51°30′02.2″N, 00°07′28.6″W
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