What do you see in the photo? Big Ben is a bell tower in London, part of the architectural complex of Westminster Palace. This is stated by numerous sites on the Internet. But this is not entirely true. Let's all the same find out what London BigBen is and what is shown in the photo above.
Big Ben is not the tall tower of Westminster Palace (popularly - Parliament), which is usually depicted on every second postcard with views of London. And not even the clock that adorns this tower. Big Ben is a bell located behind the clock face. It weighs almost 14 tons, is more than two meters high and about three meters in diameter.
Residents of London have long ceased to frown when they hear "Big Ben Tower" from tourists. Although in fact Big Ben is the largest of the six bells of the clock tower of Westminster Abbey. It is he who beats the time, hence the confusion. He was baptized like that on May 31, 1859, the day the clock was started. The name was chosen by the parliament. The loudest shout at the clock meeting was forestry curator Benjamin Hall, a straightforward and vociferous man.
There were more jokes about him than about Putin, and behind Hall's eyes they called him "Big Ben." After another particularly stupid remark from Hall, a voice was heard from the audience: "Let's call the bell Big Ben and go home!" The audience burst into laughter, but the nickname stuck. According to another, Big Ben was named after Benjamin Count, an extremely popular heavyweight boxer at the time. That's it. And the tower in which the bell hangs, by the way, is called Saint Stephen (St. Stephen's Tower).
In 1844. by the decision of the English Parliament, a commission was created to build a tower with an accurate clock. The watch was designed by Edmund Beckett Denison in 1851. He also took up the casting of the tower clock bell. However, wishing to “surpass” the heaviest bell at that time in York weighing 10 tons (“Great Peter”), he changed the traditional shape of the bell and the composition of the metal alloy.
Until the tower was completed, the bell was installed in New Palace Yard. Cast in 1856, the first bell was transported to the tower on a cart drawn by 16 horses, which was constantly surrounded by the crowd as it passed. Unfortunately, during a trial test, the bell cracked and needed repair.
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Then Denison, who by this time was already Sir Edmund Beckett, the first Baron of Glimthorpe, turned to the Whitechapel company, which at that time was owned by the master caster George Mears.
It was redesigned at the foundry and weighed 13.76 tons. The new bell was cast on April 10, 1858, after cleaning and the first tests, it was transported on sixteen decorated horses to the Parliament building. It took 18 hours to get him up the tower. The bell is 2.2 m high and 2.9 m wide. Cast by John Warner & Sons and designed by Denison, this new bell rang for the first time in July 1859.
To the great chagrin of Denison (who imagined himself to be a leading expert not only in the field of bell casting, but also in many other areas), just two months later the bell cracked again. Foundry manager George Merce said Denison used a hammer more than double its maximum weight.
For three years, Big Ben was not used, and the clock rang the lowest quarter bells until the main bell was re-installed. For repairs, a part of the metal on the rim around the crack was chopped, and the bell itself was turned so that the hammer was in a different place. Big Ben rang with a broken zing and continues to be used today with a crack. At the time of its casting, Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until 1881, when the “Big Paul”, a 17-ton bell, now housed in St. Paul's Cathedral, was cast.
Big Ben and the surrounding small bells ring out the following words: “Through this hour the Lord keeps me and his strength will not allow anyone to stumble.” Every 2 days, the mechanism is thoroughly checked and lubricated, taking into account the daily temperature and pressure.
But, like any clockwork, the clock on the tower of the English Parliament is sometimes late or in a hurry, but even such a small error (1.5 - 2 seconds) forced to find a solution in due time. To fix the situation, you only need a coin, an old English penny, which, when placed on a pendulum 4 meters long, accelerates its movement by 2.5 seconds per day. By adding or removing pennies, the caretaker achieves precision.
1916: For two years during the First World War, the bells did not ring and the dials were darkened at night to prevent an attack by German Zeppelin.
September 1, 1939: Although the bells continued to ring, the dials were darkened at night during World War II to prevent an attack by Nazi German pilots.
New Year's Eve 1962: the clock slowed down due to heavy snow and ice on the hands, which forced the pendulum to be separated from the movement, as the design would under similar circumstances, to avoid serious damage to another part of the movement. Thus, the clock rang out the new year 10 minutes later.
August 5, 1976: First and only truly serious injury. The ringer speed regulator broke down after 100 years of service, and the 4-ton weights poured all their energy onto the mechanism at once. This caused a lot of damage - the main clock did not run for a total of 26 days for 9 months, it was restarted on May 9, 1977. This was the biggest interruption in their work since construction.
May 27, 2005: Clocks stopped at 10:07 p.m. local time, possibly due to the heat (temperatures in London reached the off-season 31.8 ° C). They were restarted but stopped again at 10:20 pm local time and did not run for about 90 minutes before being restarted.
October 29, 2005: The movement was stopped for approximately 33 hours to repair and service the clocks and bells. It was the longest maintenance shutdown in 22 years.
At 7:00 am on June 5, 2006: The "quarter bells" of the clock tower were removed for four weeks because the mount that held one of the bells had worn out over time and needed repair. During the renovation, BBC radio 4 broadcast recordings of bird voices and replaced the usual chimes with pip.
11 August 2007: Start of six weeks of maintenance. The chassis and the "tongue" of the big bell were replaced for the first time since installation. During the repair, the watch did not come from the original mechanism, but from an electric motor. Once again, BBC radio 4 had to get by with pips at this time.
These watches have gained incredible popularity both in England and abroad. In London, however, there were many "Little Bens", miniature copies of St. Stephen's tower with a clock on top. Such towers - a cross between an architectural structure and the grandfather clock of living rooms - began to be erected at almost all intersections.
The official name of the tower is "Clock Tower of Westminster Palace", and it is also called "St. Stephen's Tower".
Construction of the 320-pound clock tower began in 1837 with Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. At this time, there was a reconstruction of the buildings of the parliament, damaged by a fire in 1834.
Tower height 96.3 meters (with a spire); the clock is located 55 m above the ground. With a dial diameter of 7 meters and a length of hands of 2.7 and 4.2 meters, the watch has long been considered the largest in the world.
Big Ben's dials face all 4 cardinal directions. They are made of Birmingham opal, the hour hands are cast from cast iron, and the minute hands are made of copper sheet. It is estimated that the minute hands cover a total distance of 190 km per year.
At the base of each of the four watch dials there is a Latin inscription “Domine Salvam fac Reginam nostram Victoriam primam” (“God save our Queen Victoria I”).
Along the perimeter of the tower, to the right and left of the clock, is another Latin phrase - “Laus Deo” (“Glory to God” or “Praise to God”).
Until 1912, the clocks were illuminated with gas burners, which were later replaced by electric lamps. The chimes sounded on the radio for the first time on December 31, 1923. In Big Ben, tourists are not allowed to get to the top of the tower, except by a narrow spiral staircase.
334 steps lead to a small open area with the legendary bell in the center. Its height is more than 2 meters, and its diameter is almost 3 meters.
Big Ben and other small bells seem to contain the following words in their chime: "Through this hour the Lord keeps me, and his strength will not allow anyone to stumble."
After the chimes strike, the first blow of the hammer on Big Ben exactly coincides with the first second of the beginning hour. Once every two days, the mechanism is carefully checked and lubricated, and the atmospheric pressure and air temperature must be taken into account.
There was a prison in the Tower, in which in its entire history there was only one person, it was Emmeline Pankhurst, a fighter for women's rights. Now there is a monument to her next to the parliament.
The watch has become a symbol of the United Kingdom and London, especially in the visual media. When television or filmmakers wish to indicate that the setting is in the UK, they show an image of the Clock Tower, often with a red double-decker bus or black taxi in the foreground. The sound of the clock chime has also been used in audio media, but Westminster Quarters can be heard from other clocks or devices.
The Clock Tower is the focal point of New Year's celebrations in the United Kingdom, with radio and television stations broadcasting its chime to welcome the new year. Likewise, on Memorial Day for those killed in the First and Second World Wars, Big Ben's chimes mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and the beginning of two minutes of silence.
ITN's ten o'clock news introduces a picture of the Clock Tower with Big Ben chimes, marking the start of the news feed. Big Ben chimes continue to be used during the news feed and all news roundups use a graphical base based on the Westminster clock face. Big Ben can also be heard in front of some news headlines on BBC Radio 4 (at 6pm and midnight, as well as 10pm on Sundays), a practice that began in 1923. The sound of chimes is transmitted in real time via a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected to the radio and television center.
Londoners who live close to Big Ben can hear thirteen bells ringing on New Year's Eve if they listen live and on radio or television. This effect is achieved due to the fact that the speed of sound is slower than the speed of radio waves.
The Clock Tower has appeared in many films: the "39 Steps" tape from 1978, in which Richard Hennay's hero tried to stop the clock (to prevent a bomb explosion) by hanging on the minute hand of the western dial; the film "Shanghai Knights" with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson; episode of the story of Doctor Who in the series "Aliens in London". An animated version of the clock and the interior of the tower was used in the climax of Walt Disney's cartoon Big Mouse Detective. In the movie Mars Attacks! the tower is destroyed by a UFO, and in the movie "The Avengers" it is destroyed by lightning. The introduction of the "thirteen chimes" mentioned above was the main intrigue in "Captain Scarlett" and "Mysteron" episode "Strike Again on Big Ben". In addition, a survey of more than 2,000 people found the tower to be the most popular attraction in the United Kingdom.