The tower leans like Pisa – but just 0.22 metres to the north-west, hard to spot with the naked eye.It was designed to punish MPs, who were thrown in there to reflect on their sins The tower contains a prison, last used in 1880.The Ayrton Light shines small and bright on one of the clock faces late into the night, lit whenever Parliament is in session later than usual. ![]() The chimes were stopped for 7 weeks in 2007 and 9 months in 1976, both times for repairs.A team of brave abseilers cleans the clock faces every five years.If it’s too fast they remove one of the pre-decimal pennies from the pendulum, if it’s slow they add one. The Master Clock Keeper and his team check the Great Clock three times a week.A crack developed in the second bell during 1859, solved by turning the bell a quarter clockwise and chiming it with a lighter hammer It was melted down to form part of the second Big Ben bell, made just around the corner at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. The first bell cast by Warners of Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees in the northeast, but it cracked while being tested.The Elizabeth Tower is 315ft or 96 metres high and has 11 floors.It took 16 years to build the tower alone.Big Ben has, so far, served six kings and queens during its lifetime.Big Ben and the Elizabeth Tower were designed by architects Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin to replace the Palace of Westminster, which burned down in 1834.If you’d like to stay in central London, near Big Ben and the surrounding tourist attractions, why not try our cheap hotels near Big Ben? The nearest easyHotels to Big Ben are our comfy Old Street/Barbican hotel and our hotel in Victoria. In the meantime it’s just as magnificent as ever from the outside, well worth a visit. London and Big Ben fast became synonymous, and they still are.Ī complex programme of essential work designed to conserve the Elizabeth Tower began in early 2017, and the popular Big Ben and the Elizabeth Tower tours won’t be on the cards again until the work is completed, sometime in 2021. ![]() The clock itself was started for the first time on 31st May 1859 and the Great Bell tolled for the first time on 11th July. The tower was originally called the Great Clock Tower, now officially called the Elizabeth Tower after Queen Elizabeth. But the name Big Ben didn’t originally belong to the whole clock, including the tower, but to the enormous bell. ![]() It’s one of London’s most famous and well-loved landmarks, a truly British attraction right at the political centre of the capital.
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