Fall Asleep While Learning About Big Ben

In this episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast, drift off to sleep while learning about Big Ben. I’ve always been a little fascinated by this clock tower—maybe because it was totally named after me... Just kidding! I’m not that old. Anyway, this episode dives into all the times the clock stopped working and how it was fixed. Truly riveting stuff. Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,

Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Boster.

Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,

Big Ben,

Clock Tower in London,

England.

Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster,

And by extension for the Clock Tower itself,

Which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London,

England.

Originally known simply as the Clock Tower,

It was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the diamond jubilee of Elizabeth II.

The clock is a striking clock with five bells.

The tower was designed by Sir Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin in a perpendicular Gothic revival style,

And was completed in 1859.

It is elaborately decorated with stone carvings,

And features symbols related to the four nations of the United Kingdom and the Anglo-Welsh Tudor dynasty.

A Latin description celebrates Queen Victoria,

In whose reign the palace was built.

The tower stands 316 feet tall,

And the climb from ground level to the belfry is 334 steps.

Its base is square,

Measuring 40 feet on each side.

The dials of the clock are 22.

5 feet in diameter.

The clock uses its original mechanism,

And was the largest and most accurate four-face striking and chiming clock in the world upon its completion.

It was designed by Edmund Becket Denison and George Airy,

The Astronomer Royal,

And constructed by Edward John Dent and Frederick Dent.

It is known for its reliability,

And can be adjusted by adding or removing pre-decimal pennies from the pendulum.

The Great Bell was cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry,

And weighs 13.

5 long tons.

Its nickname may be derived from Sir Benjamin Hall,

Who oversaw its installation,

Or heavyweight boxing champion Benjamin Conde.

There are four quarter bells,

Which chime on the quarter hours.

Big Ben is a British cultural icon.

It is one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and parliamentary democracy,

And it is often used in the establishing shot of films set in London.

The Clock Tower has been part of a Grade I listed building since 1970,

And a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.

The clock and tower were renovated between 2017 and 2021,

During which the bells remained silent with few exceptions.

Elizabeth Tower,

Originally named the Clock Tower and popularly known as Big Ben,

Was built as part of Charles Berry's design for a new palace of Westminster,

After the old palace was largely destroyed by fire on the 16th of October 1834.

Although Berry was the chief architect of the Neo-Gothic palace,

He turned to Augustus Pugin for the design of the Clock Tower,

Which resembles earlier Pugin designs,

Including one for Scarsbrick Hall in Lancashire.

Construction of the tower began on the 28th of September 1843.

The building contractors were Thomas Gristle and Morton Pito.

An inscribed trowel in the Parliamentary Archives records that Emily,

Sister of Pito's daughter-in-law,

Was given the honour of laying the first stone.

It was Pugin's last design before his descent into mental illness and death in 1852,

And Pugin himself wrote,

At the time of Berry's last visit to him to collect the drawings,

I never worked so hard in my life for Berry,

For tomorrow I render all my designs for finishing his bell tower,

And it is beautiful.

Completed in 1859,

The tower is designed in Pugin's Gothic Revival style and is 316 feet high,

Making it the third tallest clock tower in the UK.

Its dials are 180 feet above ground level.

The tower's base is square,

Resting on concrete foundations 12 feet thick.

It was constructed using bricks clad on the exterior with sand-coloured Anston limestone from South Yorkshire,

Topped by a spire covered in hundreds of cast iron roof tiles.

There is a spiral staircase with 290 stone steps up to the clock room,

Followed by 44 to reach the belfry,

And an additional 59 to the top of the spire.

Above the belfry and the Ayrton light are 52 shields decorated with national emblems of the four countries of the UK.

The red and white rose of England's Tudor dynasty,

The thistle of Scotland,

Shamrock of Northern Ireland,

And leek of Wales.

They also feature the pomegranate of Catherine of Aragon,

First wife of the Tudor king Henry VIII,

The portcullis,

Symbolising both houses of Parliament,

And fleur-de-lis,

A legacy from when English monarchs claimed to rule France.

A ventilation shaft running from ground level up to the belfry,

Which measures 16 feet by 8 feet,

Was designed by David Boswell Reid,

Known as the grandfather of air conditioning.

It was intended to draw cool fresh air into the palace of Westminster.

In practice,

This did not work,

And the shaft was repurposed as a chimney until around 1914.

The 2017-2021 conservation works included the addition of a lift or elevator that was installed in the shaft.

Its foundations rest on a layer of gravel,

Below which is London clay.

Owing to this soft ground,

The tower leans slightly to the northwest by roughly 230mm,

Over 55m high,

Giving an inclination of approximately 1 over 240.

This includes a planned maximum of 22mm increased tilt due to tunnelling for the Jubilee line extension.

In the 1990s,

Thousands of tonnes of concrete were pumped into the ground underneath the tower to stabilise it during construction of the Westminster section of the Jubilee line.

It leans by about 500mm at the finial.

Experts believe the tower's lean will not be a problem for another 4,

000 to 10,

000 years.

A new feature was added in 1873 by Acton Smee Ayrton,

Then first Commissioner of Works in Public Buildings.

The Ayrton light is a lantern sighted above the belfry,

And is lit whenever the House of Commons sits after dark.

It can be seen from across London.

Originally it shone towards Buckingham Palace so Queen Victoria could look out of a window and see when the Commons were at work.

Inside the tower is an oak panelled prison room,

Which can only be accessed from the House of Commons,

Not via the tower entrance.

It was last used in 1880 when atheist Charles Bradlow,

Newly elected Member of Parliament for Northampton,

Was imprisoned by the Sergeant-at-Arms after he protested against swearing a religious oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria.

Officially,

The Sergeant-at-Arms can still make arrests,

As they have had the authority to do so since 1415.

The room,

However,

Is currently occupied by the Petitions Committee,

Which oversees petitions submitted to Parliament.

Journalists during Queen Victoria's reign called it St.

Stephen's Tower.

As Members of Parliament originally sat at St.

Stephen's Hall,

These journalists referred to anything related to the House of Commons as News from St.

Stephen's,

A term that survives in Welsh-language political reporting as Sanstefan.

The palace does contain a feature called St.

Stephen's Tower,

Located above the public entrance.

On 2 June 2012,

The House of Commons voted in support of a proposal to change the name from The Clock Tower to Elizabeth Tower in commemoration of Elizabeth II and her Diamond Jubilee year,

Since the large west tower,

Known as Victoria Tower,

Had been renamed in tribute to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee.

On 26 June 2012,

The House of Commons confirmed that the name change could go ahead.

David Cameron,

Then Prime Minister,

Officially announced the change of name on 12 September 2012.

The change was marked by a naming ceremony in which John Burkow,

Then Speaker of the House of Commons,

Unveiled a plaque attached to the tower on the adjoining Speaker's Green.

Augustus Pugin drew inspiration from the clockmaker Benjamin Louis Williamie when he designed the dials.

Each is made of cast iron sections bolted together.

The whole frame is 22.

5 feet in diameter,

Making them the third largest in the UK.

They each contain 324 pieces of opalescent glass.

Originally the dials were backlit using gas lamps,

At first only when Parliament was sitting,

But they have routinely been illuminated from dusk until dawn since 1876.

Magnetic bulbs were installed at the beginning of the 20th century.

The ornate surrounds of the dials are gilded.

At the base of each dial is the Latin inscription,

Domine Salvam Fac Reginum Nostrum Victoriam Primum,

Which means,

O Lord,

Keep safe our Queen Victoria I.

Unlike Roman numeral clock dials that show the 4 position as four capital letter I's,

The great clock faces depict four as IV.

The clock's gunmetal hour hands and copper minute hands are 8.

75 feet and 14 feet long respectively.

When completed,

The dials and clock hands were Prussian blue,

But were painted black in the 1930s to disguise the effects of air pollution.

The original colour scheme was reinstated during the 2017-2021 conservation work.

Analysis of the paint layers found that no fewer than six different colour schemes had been used over the past 160 years.

The Victorian glass was also removed and replaced with faithful reproductions made in Germany by glassmakers Glasfabrik Lamberts.

The clock's movement is known for its reliability.

The designers were the lawyer and amateur orologist Edmund Beckett Dennison and George Airy,

The Astronomer Royal.

Construction was entrusted to clockmaster Edward John Dend.

After his death in 1853,

His stepson Frederick Dent completed the work in 1854.

As the tower was not completed until 1859,

Dennison had time to experiment before its installation in April that year.

Instead of using a deadbeat escapement and remontoir as originally designed,

He invented a double three-legged gravity escapement,

Which provides the best separation between pendulum and clock mechanism,

Thus mitigating the effects of rain,

Wind,

And snow on the dials.

Dennison never patented his design,

And it quickly became the standard on all new high-quality tower clocks.

On top of the pendulum is a small stack of pre-decimal penny coins.

These are to adjust the time of the clock.

Adding a coin has the effect of minutely lifting the position of the pendulum's center of mass,

Reducing the effective length of the pendulum rod,

And hence increasing the rate at which the pendulum swings.

Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.

4 seconds per day.

It keeps time to within a few seconds per week.

It is hand-wound,

Taking about one and a half hours three times a week.

The keeper of the clock is responsible for looking after the movement in addition to overseeing every aspect of maintenance around the palace.

A team of virologists are on call 24 hours a day to attend to the clock in the event of an emergency.

Breakdowns and Other Incidents,

Nineteenth Century.

Before 1878,

The clock stopped for the first time in its history through a heavy fall of snow on the hands of a clock face.

The 21st of August 1877 to January 1878,

The clock was stopped for three weeks to allow the tower and mechanism to be cleaned and repaired.

The old escape wheel was replaced.

Twentieth Century.

February 1900.

The heavy buildup of snow on a clock face impeded the progress of the hour hand,

Causing the clock to stop for about eight hours.

Twenty-ninth of December 1927.

Snow buildup on a clock face stopped the clock.

Winter 1928.

Heavy snow stopped the clock for several hours.

The second of April 1934.

The clock stopped from 7.

16 a.

M.

To 1.

15 p.

M.

When it was repaired.

Twenty-third of September 1936.

A painter painting the inside of the clock room placed a ladder against a shaft driving the hands,

Stopping the clock from 8.

47 a.

M.

To 10 a.

M.

The third through the fourth of June 1941.

The clock stopped from 10.

13 p.

M.

Until 10.

13 the following morning,

After a workman repairing air-ray damage to the clock face left a hammer too close to the mechanism.

Ninth of December 1944.

The clock hand stopped due to mechanical failure.

The broken part,

A pendulum suspension spring,

Was replaced within a few hours.

The twenty-fifth through the twenty-sixth of January 1945.

Extremely cold temperatures froze the rubber bushings on the quarter bell hammers,

Preventing the chimes sounding from 9 p.

M.

On the twenty-fifth to 9 p.

M.

The following evening.

The BBC broadcast the pips in the interval.

Twenty-eighth of January 1947.

The rubber bushings on the quarter bell hammers again froze before the clock sounded midnight,

Muting the chimes,

Though the problem was resolved by the morning.

Twelfth of August 1949.

The clock slowed by four and a half minutes after a flock of starlings perched on the minute hand.

Thirteenth of January 1955.

The clock stopped at 3.

24 a.

M.

Due to drifts of snow forming on the north and east dials.

Small electric heaters were placed just inside these two dials,

And this measure has helped to reduce instances of freezing in recent years.

Eighteenth of July 1955.

The rope operating the striking hammer broke,

Silencing the clock from 10 a.

M.

To 5 p.

M.

New Year's Eve 1962.

The clock slowed due to heavy snow and ice on the hands,

Causing the pendulum to detach from the clockwork,

As it is designed to do in such circumstances,

To avoid serious damage elsewhere in the mechanism,

The pendulum continuing to swing freely.

Thus it chimed in the 1963 New Year nine minutes late.

Thirtieth of January 1965.

The bells were silenced during the funeral of statesman and former Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Ninth of January 1968.

Snow buildup on the clock faces blocked the hands from moving,

Stopping the clock from 6.

28 a.

M.

To 10.

10 a.

M.

Fifth of August 1976.

The air brake speed regulator of the chiming mechanism broke from torsional fatigue after more than 100 years of use,

Causing the fully wound four-ton weight to spin the winding drum out of the movement,

Causing much damage.

The clock was shut down for a total of 26 days over nine months.

It was reactivated on the 9th of May 1977.

This was the longest break in operation since its construction.

During this time BBC Radio 4 broadcast the pips instead.

Although there were minor stoppages from 1977 to 2002,

When maintenance of the clock was carried out by the old firm of clockmakers Thwaites and Read,

These were often repaired within the permitted two-hour downtime and not recorded as stoppages.

Before 1970,

Maintenance was carried out by the original firm of Dent's since 2002 by parliamentary staff.

Eleventh of June 1984.

Two members of the environmental group Greenpeace scaled the clock tower and blocked the clock face for 11 hours.

March 1986 and January 1987.

The problem of the rubber bushings on the quarter bell chimes freezing recurred,

Muffling the chimes.

Thirtieth of April 1997.

The clock stopped 24 hours before the general election and stopped again three weeks later.

Twenty-first century.

Twentieth of March 2004.

Twenty years after their first scaling of the clock tower,

Greenpeace activists blocked the clock face for seven hours.

Twenty-seventh of May 2005.

The clock stopped at 10.

07pm,

Possibly because of hot weather.

Temperatures in London had reached an unseasonable 31.

8 degrees Celsius or 89.

2 degrees Fahrenheit.

It resumed but stopped again at 10.

20pm and remained still for about 90 minutes before resuming.

Twenty-ninth of October 2005.

The mechanism was stopped for about 33 hours to allow maintenance work on the clock and its chimes.

It was the lengthiest maintenance shutdown in 22 years.

Seven a.

M.

On the fifth of June 2006.

The clock tower's quarter bells were taken out of commission for four weeks as a bearing holding one of the quarter bells was worn and needed to be removed for repairs.

During this period,

BBC Radio 4 broadcast recordings of British birdsong followed by the pips in place of the usual chimes.

Eleventh of August 2007.

Start of six-week stoppage for maintenance.

Bearings in the clock's chime train and the great bell striker were replaced for the first time since installation.

During the maintenance,

The clock was driven by an electric motor.

Once again,

BBC Radio 4 broadcast the pips during this time.

The intention was that the clock should run accurately for a further 200 years before major maintenance is again required.

In fact,

The repairs sufficed for 10 years.

Seventeenth of April 2013.

The bells were silenced as a mark of profound dignity and deep respect during the funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Twenty-fifth of August 2015.

Maintenance crews discovered the clock to be running seven seconds fast.

They removed coins from its pendulum to correct the error,

Which caused it to run slow for a period.

Twenty-first of August 2017.

The start of a four-year silencing of the chimes during maintenance and repair work to the clock mechanism,

And repairs and improvements to the clock tower building.

During this time,

Dials,

Hands,

And lights were removed for restoration,

With at least one dial,

With its hands driven by an electric motor,

Left intact,

Functioning and visible at any given time.

The lift was also installed during this renovation.

Tenth of May 2023.

The clock dials all stopped at 1255 p.

M.

,

And Big Ben did not chime at 1 p.

M.

The hands restarted,

But the clock was five minutes slow until rectified at 147 p.

M.

The main bell,

Officially known as the Great Bell,

But better known as Big Ben,

Is the largest bell in the tower and part of the Great Clock of Westminster.

It sounds an e-natural.

The original bell was a 16-ton hour bell,

Cast on 6th of August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner and Sons.

It is thought that the bell was originally to be called Victoria or Royal Victoria in honor of Queen Victoria,

But that an MP suggested the bell's current nickname of Big Ben 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 during testing it cracked beyond repair and a replacement had to be made.

The bell was recast on the 10th of April 1858 at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13.

5-ton bell.

The second bell was transported from the foundry to the tower on a trolley drawn by 16 horses with crowds cheering its progress.

It was then pulled 200 feet up to the clock tower's belfry,

A feat that took 18 hours.

It is 7 feet 6 inches tall and 9 feet in diameter.

This new bell first chimed on the 11th of July 1859.

In September it too cracked under the hammer.

According to the foundry's manager,

George Mears,

The orologist Dennison had used the hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified.

For three years Big Ben was taken out of commission and the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells until it was repaired.

To make the repair,

A square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack and the bell given an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place.

Big Ben has chimed with a slightly different tone ever since and is still in use today with the crack unrepaired.

Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until Great Paul,

A 16.

75-ton bell currently hung in St.

Paul's Cathedral,

Was cast in 1881.

In August 2007 the bell's striker was replaced for the first time since installation.

The origin of the nickname Big Ben is the subject of some debate.

The nickname was applied first to the Great Bell.

It may have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall,

Who oversaw the installation of the Great Bell,

Or after English heavyweight boxing champion Ben Conte.

Now Big Ben is often used,

By extension,

To refer to the clock,

The tower,

And the bell collectively,

Although the nickname is not universally accepted as referring to the clock and tower.

Some authors of works about the tower,

Clock,

And bell sidestep the issue by using the words Big Ben first in the title,

Then going on to clarify that the subject of the book is the clock and tower,

As well as the bell.

Along with the Great Bell,

The bell freehouses four quarter bells,

Which play the Westminster quarters on the quarter hours.

The four quarter bells sound G-sharp,

F-sharp,

E,

And B.

They were cast by John Warner and Sons at their Crescent foundry in 1857,

G-sharp,

F-sharp,

And B,

And 1858 for E.

The foundry was in Jew and Crescent,

In what is now known as the Barbican,

In the City of London.

The bells are sounded by hammers pulled by cables coming from the link room,

A low ceiling space between the clock room and the belfry,

Where they are triggered by cables coming from the chime train.

The quarter bells play a once-repeated 20-node sequence of rounds and four changes in the key of E major,

1-4 at quarter past,

5-12 at half past,

13-20,

And 1-4 at quarter to,

And 5-20 on the hour,

Which sounds 25 seconds before the main bell tolls the hour.

Because the low bell,

B,

Is struck twice in quick succession,

There's not enough time to pull a hammer back,

And it is supplied with two wrench hammers on opposite sides of the bell.

The tune is that of the Cambridge Chimes,

First used for chimes of Great St.

Mary's Church,

Cambridge,

And supposedly a variation,

Attributed to William Crotch based on violin phrases from the air,

I know that my Redeemer liveth and handles Messiah.

The notional words of the chime,

Again derived from Great St.

Mary's,

And in turn an allusion to Psalm 37,

23-24 are,

All through this hour,

Lord,

Be my guide,

And by thy power no foot shall slide.

They are written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room.

One of the requirements for the clock was that the first stroke of the hour bell should be correct to within one second per day.

The tolerance is with reference to Greenwich Mean Time,

BST,

In summer.

So at 12 o'clock,

For example,

It is the first of the 12-hour bell strikes that signifies the hour,

The New Year on New Year's Eve at midnight.

The time signaled by the last of the six pips,

UTC,

May be fractionally different.

On the 13th of November 2022,

Remembrance Sunday,

The chimes of Big Ben returned to regular service for the first time since August 2017,

Preceding the hour bell being sounded at 11 a.

M.

Local time,

The first hour strike marking the beginning of two minutes of silence.

That concludes this episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast.

Reviews

I’d love to see Big Ben in person, although I only made it about 10 minutes into this. 😂😂 Thank you Benjamin! 😊😻

Just the kind of snooze fest I was looking for. Many thanks, Benjamin!

Thanks Ben for reading about Big Ben. I have to admit I never heard of the other names for the massive clock tower.