Time Keepers to the Nation
When one hear the words “Big Ben” immediately an image of the striking Victorian Gothic structure of the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster comes into mind. However technically speaking, the name “Big Ben” does not refer to the famous tower, nor to the four huge clock faces of this London landmark but, it refers to the largest of the five bells inside the clock tower, whose chimes are such a familiar sound to listeners to BBC radio over the years.
Big Ben is one of London’s best-known tourist landmarks, and looks truly spectacular at night when the clock faces are illuminated. One can even know when parliament is in session, because a light shines above the clock face. The bell was named after the first commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall.
The four dials of the clock are 23 feet square, the minute hand is 14 feet long and the figures are 2 feet high. Minutely regulated with a stack of coins placed on the huge pendulum, Big Ben is an excellent timekeeper, which has rarely stopped.
This bell came originally from the old Palace of Westminster; it was given to the Dean of St. Paul’s by William III. Before returning to Westminster to hang in its present home, it was refashioned in White chapel in 1858. The BBC first broadcast the chimes on the 31st December 1923 – there is a microphone in the turret connected to Broadcasting House.
Big Ben was first broadcast on New Year’s Eve in 1923. The light above the clock is lit while the Commons is sitting. Big Ben weighs over 13 tons.The clock tower of the Palace of Westminster took 13 years to build, and was completed in 1856. The tower is 316 feet high. The spire that rises above the belfry is built with an iron frame, and it is this frame which supports the weight of the bells. A staircase rises up inside the tower, and a climb is rewarded by excellent views from the belfry level. Several small rooms are built into the lower part of the tower, including a small prison cell.
The cast iron frame of the clock face was designed by AW Pugin, who was responsible for much of the Gothic decorative elements of the Palace of Westminster. The dials are 23 feet in diameter and the faces themselves are not solid, but are composed of many small pieces of opal glass, assembled like a stained glass window. Several of the central pieces of glass can be removed to allow inspection of the hands from inside the clock tower. The numbers on the clock faces are each two feet high. An inscription in Latin below each clock face translates as “God save our Queen Victoria I”.
At the time of its construction the clock mechanism was easily the largest in the world, and it is still among the largest today. The clock mechanism, designed by Edmund Beckett Denison, has proven to be remarkably accurate over the years, allowing small adjustments to the clock’s rate to be made by placing pennies on a small shoulder of the clock’s pendulum.
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