The bell known as Big Ben weighs 13 tons and is the biggest of the five bells in the Elizabeth Tower. Its faces are more than ten times bigger than Big Ben. One of these is the Abraj Al Bait, a hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. There are, however, clocks with much bigger faces that Big Ben. The figures on the clock face are about 2 feet (0.61 m) long and the minute spaces are 1 foot (0.30 m) long. The clock on it has four faces that are 9 feet (2.7 m) in diameter, making it one of the largest in the world for a clock that chimes and strikes every hour. The Elizabeth Tower is over 96 metres (315 ft) high and the turret clock mechanism that drives the clock alone weighs about 5 tons (5.08 tonnes). The Great Clock is wound three times a week. It will still be heard on special occasions, such as the New Year and Remembrance Day.
For the safety of those doing this work, Big Ben no longer rings out every hour. Since August 2017, repair work is being done on the clock, which will take four years. The Elizabeth Tower which it is located in has become one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and is often in the establishing shot of films set in London. Some believe it got its name from Sir Benjamin Hall. It has worked continuously since then except for a few months in 1976 when it broke down and had to be fixed.īig Ben is one of England’s best-known landmarks.
However, most people, including those that live in London, call the tower "Big Ben" because it is very large.ĭesigned by Edmund Beckett Denison, the clock took 13 years to build and it was completed in 1859. It was previously known as just the Clock Tower, but was renamed in September 2012 as a tribute to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Officially, the tower itself is called Elizabeth Tower. Big Ben is the nickname of a bell that hangs in the clock tower at the northern end of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, England.
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