The clock faces are cleaned every 5 years using little more than soap and water. The clock gains 2/5 of a second a day from each penny added. If the clock is running slow, a penny is removed from the pendulum. If the clock is running fast, a penny is added to the pendulum. Pennies on the PendulumĮvery year the clock is adjusted using an old English penny. Naturally, it rings in the new year every year for London. The first radio broadcast of Big Ben’s chimes was to ring in the new year of 1924. Plus, in a move that would make other attorneys scratch their heads, Denison chose not to patent his modifications, meaning that any clock designer would be free to use them. Edward Dent had started the initial design, but Denison ended up making multiple modifications to it, so many that he is actually credited as the chief designer. The clock mechanism itself was designed by Edmund Beckett Denison, who was not actually a clockmaker, but a lawyer. Add to that, the minute hand had to be replaced twice when it proved too heavy to actually move. The tower then proved too small for the mechanical clock and the bell broke the day after it was tested. The start of construction was marked with delivery delays, budget issues, and bureaucracy (believe it or not). The tower had some problems during construction. On Remembrance Day every year, the bells broadcast to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when the armistice that ended World War I took effect. Each clock face contains 312 panes of glass, making a total of 1,248 pieces of glass. Each clock face has an inscription in Latin in gold that reads “DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM” or “Oh Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First”. The hour hands are 9 feet long, the minute hands are 14 feet, and the numerals are 2 feet. The diameter of each of the clock’s dials is 23 feet. The Bells! The Bells!īig Ben chimes every fifteen minutes and can be heard from as far away as five miles. The “big” part comes from the fact that the bell weighs 16 tons (or 13.4 tonnes) and is about 7 feet tall. The Great Bell was cast in 1858 and has Sir Hall’s name inscribed upon it. The previous Palace of Westminster had burned down as a result of the Great Fire of 1834. The bell itself is officially called the “Great Bell”, but gets its nickname from Sir Benjamin Hall, who became the first Commissioner of Public Works in 1855 and oversaw the later stages of the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament. 1Ī 2008 survey of 2,000 people found that Big Ben was the UK’s most popular tourist attraction. So what are some of the interesting facts about a bell, you ask? Well, read on. Officially, the tower is referred to as Elizabeth Tower, connected to the Palace of Westminster. Big Ben is actually a nickname that refers to the Great Bell within the tower itself. When most people think of Big Ben, they think of the clock tower there at the Houses of Parliament.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |