History of creation and description of Big Ben in London with interesting facts. Big Ben: description, history, excursions, exact address Main clock of London

London's Big Ben has long become one of the most recognizable symbols of England. This name historically does not belong to huge watches, as is commonly believed. Big Ben is a huge bell, weighing about 13 tons, the diameter of its base is 3 meters. The bell is located in the tower, which is part of the architectural ensemble of the Palace of Westminster. Gradually, both the huge clock and the 96-meter-high tower began to be called this way. Big Ben's clock also has impressive dimensions (diameter of the dial is 7 meters); they are still among the largest in the world.

The clock tower was built in 1858. It was designed by Augustus Pugin, an English architect. A year later, at an altitude of 55 meters, a clock was launched on the tower. The original bell was cast in advance - in 1856, its weight was 16 tons, and it was then that it was given the name Big Ben. But during testing it cracked, after which it was remade and lost weight, and soon cracked again. For several years the clock worked without it, until finally, after minor repairs, the bell was raised to the tower. It is he who now rings on the tower along with the quarter bells, reproducing the Cambridge chimes.

Origin of the name Big Ben

There is still no consensus about why the bell was given such an uncharacteristic name - Big Ben. According to one version, the main attraction of London owes its name to a boxer, who was so nicknamed because of his weight. His real name is Benjamin Count. According to another, Benjamin Hall, who supervised the production of the bell, became the founder of this name, since due to his build he was called Big Ben.

Features of the Big Ben clock

The clock mechanism was made according to the design of the royal astronomer and amateur watchmaker (George Airey and Edmund Beckett Denison). It owes its accuracy and reliability to the double three-stage action invented by Denison. The clock can be adjusted using 1 penny coins - they change the speed by 0.4 seconds.

The huge dials are in iron frames and consist of individual pieces of opal glass, the circumference of the discs is covered with gold. However, there is no way to see all this splendor - now the entrance to the tower is closed to visitors. In addition, there is no lift in the tower, and those who wish could only climb up the stairs.

Big Ben - clockwork

How to get to Big Ben

The bus can take you to Trafalgar Square, Whathall or Parliament Square, stopping close to the Palace of Westminster. By metro travel to Victoria or Westminster stations.

The Clock Tower is central to British New Year celebrations and this is probably the best time to visit London. On December 31, you will not only be able to admire the most iconic place for the British, but also hear the chimes.

Big Ben is London's most famous landmark. In fact, Big Ben is the name of the largest bell on the clock located at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, although the name is also often used to refer to the clock or clock tower in general. This is part of the architectural complex of the Palace of Westminster. The official name is “Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster”, it is also called “St. Stephen’s Tower”. “Big Ben” is the building itself and the clock along with the bell. The name of the tower comes from the name of the 13-ton bell installed inside it. Big Ben is the largest four-sided clock with bells and the third tallest clock tower in the world. In May 2009, the clock celebrated its 150th anniversary (the clock was first wound on May 31) with numerous ceremonial events.

The nearest London Underground station is Westminster on the Circle on the District and Jubilee lines.

Tower

The clock tower was originally built in Westminster in 1288 with the money of Ralph Hengham, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. However, the current tower was built as part of a new palace designed by Charles Barry, after the old palace building was destroyed by fire on the night of October 22, 1834.

The new parliament was built in neo-Gothic style. Although Charles Barry was the chief architect of the palace, he handed over the design of the clock tower to Augustus Pugin, which is reminiscent of his earlier designs, including the design for Scarisbrick Hall. The clock tower project was Pugin's last, after which he went crazy and died. Pajin himself considered the tower project the most difficult in his life. According to Pajina's design, the neo-Gothic style tower is 96.3 meters high (about 16 floors).

The height of the clock tower without the spire is 61 meters and consists of brick covered with colored limestone on top. The rest of the tower is represented by a cast iron spire. The tower is installed on a 15-meter concrete foundation, 3 meters thick and 4 meters deep below ground level. The four dials are located at an altitude of 55 meters. The internal volume of the tower is 4,650 cubic meters.

Despite being one of the world's most popular landmarks, the tower is closed to the public for security reasons, although the press and various dignitaries do gain access from time to time. However, the tower does not have an elevator or other lift, so those who gain access must climb 334 limestone steps to reach the top.

Due to changes in ground conditions since construction (especially the tunneling for the Jabili Line of the London Underground), the tower leans slightly to the north-west by approximately 220mm, giving a tilt of approximately 1/250. Due to weather conditions, this inclination fluctuates within a few millimeters to the north or west.

Watch

Dials

The dials are quite large, and for a time Big Ben was the largest four-sided clock in the world, but the record was broken by the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. However, the Allen-Bradley builders did not add chiming to the clock, so the Great Clock of Westminster still bears the title of “the largest four-sided striking clock.”

The watch and dial were designed by Augustus Pugin. The watch dials are housed in 7-meter-long iron frames and are made from 312 pieces of opal glass and look more like windows. Some of their pieces can be removed by hand to inspect them. The circumference of the discs is gold plated.

Mechanism

The watch is known for its reliability. The designers were lawyer and amateur watchmaker Edmund Beckett Denison and George Airey, Astronomer Royal. The assembly was entrusted to watchmaker Edward John Dent, who completed the work in 1854. Since the tower was not fully built until 1859, Denison had time to experiment: instead of using a deadbeat and key to wind the clock as in the original design, Denison invented a double three-stage movement. This stroke provides the best separation between the pendulum and the clock mechanism. The pendulum is installed inside a windproof box located below the clock room. It is 3.9 m long, weighs 300 kg and walks every two seconds. The clock mechanism located in the room below weighs 5 tons.

The idiomatic expression "put a penny" with the meaning of retardation, comes from the method of fine-tuning the pendulum of a clock. At the top of the pendulum are old English coins - pennies. Adding or removing coins has the effect of changing the position of the pendulum's center of gravity, the effective length of the pendulum, and therefore the amplitude over which the pendulum swings. Adding or subtracting a penny can change the speed of the clock by 0.4 seconds per day.

On 10 May 1941, a German bombing raid damaged two dials, the roof of the tower and destroyed the House of Commons building. Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed the new five-storey block. Two floors were occupied by the current ward, which first began to use it on October 26, 1950. Despite the bombing, the clock continued to tick and ring.

Failures, breakdowns and breakdowns
1916: For two years during the First World War, the bells were not rung and the dials were darkened at night to prevent attacks by German Zeppelins.

September 1, 1939: Although the bells continued to ring, the dials were darkened at night throughout World War II to prevent attacks by Nazi German pilots.

New Year's Eve 1962: The clock slowed down due to heavy snow and ice on the hands, resulting in the pendulum having to be separated from the mechanism, as is the design in such circumstances, to avoid serious damage to another part of the movement. Thus, the clock rang for the New Year 10 minutes later.

August 5, 1976: the first and only truly serious damage. The speed regulator of the ringing mechanism broke down after 100 years of service, and the 4-ton loads unleashed all their energy on the mechanism at once. This caused great damage - the main clock did not run for a total of 26 days over 9 months, it was started again on May 9, 1977. This was the biggest interruption in their work since construction.

27 May 2005: The clock stopped at 10:07 pm local time, possibly due to the heat (temperatures in London reached an unseasonal 31.8°C). They were restarted but stopped again at 10:20 pm local time and remained idle for about 90 minutes before being restarted.

October 29, 2005: The mechanism was stopped for approximately 33 hours for repair and maintenance work on the clock and bells. It was the longest maintenance closure in 22 years.

At 7:00 a.m. June 5, 2006: The clock tower's "quarter bells" were removed for four weeks because the mount holding one of the bells had become severely worn over time and was in need of repair. During the renovation, BBC Radio 4 broadcast recordings of bird calls and replaced the usual chimes with peeps.

August 11, 2007: Six-week maintenance begins. The chassis and “tongue” of the large bell were replaced for the first time since installation. During the repair, the clock was powered not by the original mechanism, but by an electric motor. Once again BBC Radio 4 had to make do with pips during this time.

Bells

Big bell

The main bell, the largest bell in the tower, officially called the Great Bell, is Big Ben.

The original bell weighed 16 tons and was cast on August 6, 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner and Sons.

While the tower was not 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 crowds as it moved. Unfortunately, during the trial test the bell cracked and required repairs. It was rebuilt at the Whitechapel Foundry and weighed 13.76 tons. It took 18 hours to get it up the tower. The bell is 2.2 m high and 2.9 m wide. This new bell first rang in July 1859. However, it also cracked under a hammer in September, two months after it was put into permanent service. According to foundry manager George Merce, Denison used a hammer that was more than twice the maximum allowable weight. For three years Big Ben was not used, and the clock rang at its lowest quarter bells until the main bell was reinstalled. To repair, part of the metal on the frame around the crack was cut, and the bell itself was rotated so that the hammer was in a different place. Big Ben rang with a broken, drawn-out ringing 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 "Big Paul" was cast in 1881, a 17-ton bell currently housed in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Chimes

Along with the Great Bell, the bell tower building also has four quarter bells that ring the quarter. These four bells play the notes G#, F#, E and B. They were cast by John Warner & Sons at their foundry in 1857 (G#, F# and B) and in 1858 (E). The factory was located in Jevin Crescent, what is now known as the Barbican, in the City of London.

The quarter bells play a sequence with 20 chimes, 1 - 4 at the quarter, 5 - 12 at the half, 13 - 20 and 1 - 4 at the quarter and 5 - 20 at the hour (which sounds 25 seconds before the main bell chimes the hour) . Since the low bell (B) must ring twice in quick succession, it is not enough to use one hammer, so it has two hammers located on opposite sides. The ringing melody is the Cambridge Chimes, first used for the chime at St Mary's Church, Cambridge, believed to be by William Crotch.

Nickname

Big Ben's nickname is still the subject of much debate. The name was first applied to the Great Bell. There is a legend according to which the bell was named Big Ben in honor of the chief commissioner for the work, Sir Benjamin Hall. According to another theory, the origin of the name may be associated with the name of heavyweight boxer Benjamin Count. There is also a version that initially the bell should have been called Victoria or Royal Victoria in honor of the Queen, a similar proposal was made by one of the members of parliament, but comments on this issue are not recorded in the official reports of the parliamentary meeting. Now Big Ben is used to generally refer to the clock, tower and bells, although the nickname is not always correlated with the clock and tower. Some authors of works on the tower, clock and bell avoid this title in their titles, although they later explain that the subject of the book is both the clock and the tower and the bell.

Meaning in culture

The clock has become a symbol of the United Kingdom and London, especially in visual media. When TV or film producers want to indicate that the scene is set in Great Britain, they show an image of the Clock Tower, often with a red double-decker bus or black taxi in the foreground. The sound of clocks ringing has also been used in audio media, but Westminster Quarters can also be heard from other clocks or devices.

The Clock Tower is the center of New Year's celebrations in the United Kingdom, with radio and television stations broadcasting its chime to welcome the new year. Similarly, on Remembrance Day for those killed in the First and Second World Wars, the chimes of Big Ben 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 features an image of the Clock Tower with the chimes of Big Ben marking the start of the news feed. Big Ben's chimes continue to be used during the news feed and all news reports use a graphical base based on the face of the Westminster clock. Big Ben can also be heard before some news headlines on BBC Radio 4 (6pm and midnight, and 10pm on Sundays), a practice dating back to 1923. The sound of the chimes is transmitted in real time through a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected to the radio and television center.

Londoners who live near Big Ben can hear the thirteen tolls of the bell on New Year's Eve if they listen both live and on radio or TV. This effect is achieved because the speed of sound is slower than the speed of radio waves.

The clock tower has appeared in many films: 1978's The 39 Steps, in which Richard Hannay's character tried to stop a clock (to prevent a bomb from exploding) by hanging on the minute hand of a Western clock; the film "Shanghai Knights" with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson; episode of the Doctor Who story Aliens in London. An animated version of the clock and tower interior were used in the climax of Walt Disney's 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 appearance of the "thirteen chimes" mentioned above became the main intrigue in Captain Scarlett and the Mysteron episode "Big Ben Strike Again". In addition, a survey of more than 2,000 people showed that the tower is the most popular attraction in the United Kingdom.

Moyan Brenn / flickr.com John Morgan / flickr.com View of Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster from Westminster Bridge (Kosala Bandara / flickr.com) View of Big Ben from the London Eye (Linus Follert / flickr.com ) Norbert Reimer / flickr.com Big Ben Dial (Phil Dolby / flickr.com) Hernán Piñera / flickr.com Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (Naz Amir / flickr.com) Ben Cremin / flickr.com Davide D'Amico / flickr .com Matt Machin / flickr.com Never House / flickr.com View of Big Ben from the London Eye (Miguel Mendez / flickr.com) Nikos Koutoulas / flickr.com Stròlic Furlàn - Davide Gabino / flickr.com

Big Ben is the main symbol of London and the whole of Great Britain. This attraction has been known all over the world for many years. It is located in the center of London.

Big Ben indicates the official time of the New Year along the Greenwich meridian. England and other countries located along the prime meridian celebrate the holiday first.

Big Ben is the legendary clock tower of the capital of Great Britain, which is one of the buildings of the Palace of Westminster. Why exactly and after whom is it named? Answers to this question vary.

There is a main version that the bell was named after Benjamin Hall, who was supervising the construction and a man of large build. In another version, Big Ben is named after the famous heavyweight boxer, Benjamin Count.

There are other names for this object, for example, the media mentioned it as St. Stephen's Tower. Since 2012, the official name of the attraction is the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster.

Construction of Big Ben

It all started in 1837, after a fire it was necessary to restore the Palace of Westminster. It was planned to build a whole complex of buildings. The tower design was chosen.

View of Big Ben from the London Eye (Miguel Mendez / flickr.com)

The honor of becoming an architect fell to Charles Berry. He asked for funds to make a clock on St. Stephen's Tower. The neo-Gothic style, which gives the charm of Big Ben, was implemented in the design of the tower by Augustus Pugin.

The clock tower was built in 1858. The bell for the tower itself was made in 1856, when there were no clocks yet. Its creator was Edmund Denison, who was entrusted with the important task of surpassing all the bells in Great Britain in terms of sound volume and creating a bell that weighs as much as no other bell in the kingdom has weighed before.

The first bell weighed 14.5 tons, however, it could not withstand the blow of an overly heavy hammer and split due to Edmund Denison's mistake. After this event, a second bell weighing 13.7 tons was cast, which later became known as the Big Ben bell.

Big Ben Clock Tower (John Morgan / flickr.com)

The clock for the tower was designed by the kingdom's astronomer George Airy together with watchmaker Edmund Denison. The astronomer needed high accuracy not only of the clock mechanism itself, but also for the bell to chime the hours exactly to the second.

To do this, it was necessary to check hourly by telegraph with the Greenwich Observatory, so there must always be a caretaker in the tower who monitors the time the clock shows.

To achieve accuracy, a reliable design was also needed that would last for many years. During the installation of the hands, it turned out that they were too heavy, as they were made of cast iron, after which they were remade.

The clock on the tower began operating at the end of May in 1859, and the bell was installed in midsummer. The watch has a double three-stage movement, which makes it very accurate. Their weight is about 5 tons.

Appearance

The size of Big Ben is quite impressive. The height of the clock tower together with the spire is 96.3 meters. The clock mechanism itself begins at an altitude of 55 meters. The Big Ben clock can be seen from four sides.

Big Ben Dial (Phil Dolby / flickr.com)

The length of the clock pendulum is 4 meters and weighs 300 kilograms. The stroke of a clock pendulum is 2 seconds.

The diameter of the dial, made of 312 pieces of opal glass, is 7 meters. It is inscribed in a gilded steel frame.

The length of the large arrow is 4.2 meters, the small one is 2.7 meters. The hour hand is cast iron, the minute hand is made of lighter metal - copper. The roof is made of brick and covered with limestone, and there is a spire on it.

Under each of Big Ben's four dials is the Latin inscription "God Save Queen Victoria the First".

Big Ben as a landmark has many interesting features:

• The clock tower is the second largest in the world in size.
• For a short time, Big Ben was a prison. In its entire history, only one prisoner was imprisoned in this tower - Emeline Fankhurst.
• Another interesting fact is that it is estimated that the large minute hand of the clock on the tower rotates 190 kilometers per year.
• The watch is very accurate and the time it shows is the reference. Although, like any other mechanism, errors sometimes occur. But they are small and amount to 1 or 2 seconds in one direction or another.
• The accuracy of the clock is achieved using an old 1 penny coin. It needs to be placed on the pendulum and then the mechanism accelerates by 0.4 seconds per day.
• Big Ben in London strikes every hour and time is counted from it in other countries. His fight is broadcast hourly on BBC radio.

Big Ben is visible on the map as part of the Palace of Westminster on the banks of the Thames. The entire complex of buildings is located next to Parliament, Buckingham Palace and other attractions. Full information about where it is located can be found in tourist guides.

It's no secret that the famous London clock is a landmark that has been very popular for many years. This building is striking in its size and is an integral part of old London.

A detailed description of Big Ben in London, its history, interesting facts, as well as colorful photographs are available in almost every tourist guide in the world, because it is truly a unique structure. To begin with, it should be noted that the clock tower, which is commonly called Big Ben, is not such. In fact, this name belongs to one of the 6 bells located in it.

History of creation

The first architectural structure on the site of present-day Big Ben was erected in 1288. The tower was located on the territory of the Palace of Westminster, but was not part of it. Construction was carried out by Ralph Hengham, who headed the panel of the Supreme Court at the royal court.

In the autumn of 1834, the surroundings of the Palace of Westminster were engulfed in a severe fire, unable to withstand which the old buildings were completely destroyed. The tower itself was severely burned and could not be restored. Restoration work began almost immediately. The architectural project, of which the tower of St. Stephen's Tower, also known as Queen Victoria's Tower, was designed by the architects Charles Berry and Augustus Pugin.

The tower was originally conceived as a clock tower. Its neo-Gothic style could not have been more compatible with the surrounding environment. The size of the structure is 98 meters high and another 15 meters deep. This is not the tallest building in modern London, but it is certainly one of the most famous and popular among tourists. In addition, miniature Big Ben towers are found in many places around the world, decorating park areas and attractions.

Name

There is no reliable information about why the bell that triggers the clock mechanism is named Big Ben in the surviving historical sources. The most likely version was the name of the bell in honor of Benjamin Hall, a rich and noble lord, whose speech regarding the choice of a suitable name for the new landmark allegedly prompted other lords to support the idea of ​​naming the bell in his honor.

The lord was broad-shouldered, tall, and could compete in strength with the heaviest fighters, for which he was nicknamed Big Ben.

Phil Dolby/flickr.com

According to another version, Benjamin Hall is just a foreman who supervised the construction work and delivered Big Ben to London, which gave him the right to go down in history.

A less popular version is that the name of the bell is associated with the name of one of the then strongmen - Benjamin Count.

How does the clock work?

The Big Ben Clock Tower is square, with huge dials on each side, allowing everyone nearby, regardless of their location, to see the time shown. The clock is located at a height of 55 meters from the surface of the earth.

The dial consists of 312 individual elements smelted from glass opal, some parts of which can be freely removed, cleaned, or replaced with new ones. The edges of the watch are covered with steel; its mechanism was first started on May 21, 1859.

The development of the clock mechanism was in charge of Benjamin Valyami; later the project was transferred to another master, who, to better separate the pendulum and the clock mechanism, invented a double three-stage movement, which increased the weight of the clock to 5 tons. The master managed to place a pendulum weighing 300 kilograms and 3.9 meters long under the clock room.

The pendulum moves every 2 seconds, and is protected from the negative effects of its environment (rain, snow and wind) by a special box. To reduce the overall weight, the minute hand was cast from copper, and the hour hand from cast iron.

The Big Ben bell was cast in 1856. It weighed 16 tons and was delivered in a carriage with 16 heavy horses harnessed to it. The casting of the bell was carried out by a private company, which was no longer news in those days. After delivery to London, Big Ben's clock and the bell itself waited a long time for completion of construction.

After the first start of the clock, a crack appeared on the bell. Experts found that the cause of the breakdown was an overly heavy hammer. The bell was repaired, the hammer was replaced with a lighter one, but this did not help.

Ultimately, it was necessary to reduce the weight of the bell to 13.5 tons, but this did not help; the crack still appeared in the same place. Further reduction in his weight could cause hours of loss of volume. You could hear their fight from any part of London. To prevent this from happening, the bell was turned over to the other side and the crack was sealed.

No less pressing was the issue of watch accuracy; Benjamin Valyami believed that due to the complexity of the mechanism, it would not be possible to achieve sufficient accuracy. Royal astronomer George Airy managed to refute this statement. The scientist and the master argued for over 5 years, which resulted in the entrustment of the project to a certain E. Dent, who designed the clock mechanism with the required high degree of accuracy.

So that the time could be seen not only during the day, but also at night, the hands were illuminated using gas jets. With the advent of electricity, electric lamps replaced horns.

Camilla Carvalho/flickr.com

On December 31, 1923, the fight issued by Big Ben became available to radio listeners. From now on, the chimes sound at the beginning of every hour on all radio stations broadcasting programs in English.

Video: Big Ben, London.

There are many legends and myths around London's Big Ben, but there are also some more reliable and interesting facts. So, all Englishmen are well aware that:

1. On each side of the tower, directly below the clock, there is an inscription in Latin meaning “God save our Queen Victoria.”
2. The inscription “Praise the Lord” is engraved along the perimeter of the tower.
3. The tower and the huge bell that crowned it became the last project in the architectural career of Augustus Pugin. Soon after the construction was completed, he went crazy and died, never regaining his sanity.
4. Big Ben is the largest bell, with the help of which it was possible to make the clock beat the rhythm. At the same time, the tower itself is the only structure on which a four-sided clock is located, capable of not only showing the time, but also notifying the district about the arrival of each hour.
5. The tower's location almost in the center of the Greenwich meridian allows Londoners to be the first in the world to change the clock from December 31 to January 1.
6. During the war years, both World War I and World War II, the dial was darkened at night. Due to the security measures taken, the chimes were not struck for over 2 years.
7. The watch broke down several times, the most significant breakdown occurred on August 5, 1976, the mechanism resumed operation only in May 1977.
8. Since the tower was built without taking into account possible underground work in this area (meaning the laying of a metro line), its angle of inclination shifted by 2.2 centimeters.
9. There is no free access to the tower; only British citizens who have received a special pass can visit it; tourists are forced to watch from the outside.
10. There are 334 steps inside the building, which you can climb to view the outskirts of London from a height of 62 meters.
11. To prevent the clock from falling behind, which began immediately after installing the heavy mechanism, a coin of 1 penny is placed on one of the hands (the coin slows down the movement of the pendulum by 0.4 seconds and speeds up its movement by 2.5 seconds per day).
12. The annual path of Big Ben's minute hand is 190 kilometers.
13. To verify the accuracy of the clock, a telegraph message was used, in addition, Big Ben was connected to the Greenwich Laboratory, which made it possible to obtain the most accurate information for reconciling clocks.
14. During World War II, Big Ben was bombed, which had a significant impact on the operation of the mechanism and caused it to regularly lag.
15. In 2012, the tower received a new name - “Elizabeth II Tower”. The renaming took place on the birthday of the Queen, beloved by all the English.
16. Big Ben and the smaller bells surrounding it tap out a rhythm that forms a phrase from the Bible, the exact wording of which can be found in any reference book.
17. The clock strikes down to the second, and the chimes continue throughout the first second of the hour.
18. If there is a regular session in parliament, the tower is illuminated with additional floodlights.
19. For some time, the clock tower was a place of detention for disobedient parliamentarians.
20. The length of the minute hands is 4.2 meters, the length of the hour hands is 2.7 meters.
21. The watch mechanism is checked regularly to ensure the exact time. Usually, reconciliation occurs at least once every 2 days; one of the watchmakers was almost fired from his honorary position after receiving news that the chimes were significantly behind by at least 10 minutes.
22. The British call copies of Big Ben Little Bens; the most famous one is installed at Victoria Station.

The special design of the bell and clock mechanism makes the sound that the Big Ben clock makes in London unique. To admire and listen to them, just ask a London taxi driver to take you to Parliament Square or take the tube and get off at Westminster station. You definitely won’t be able to miss such a magnificent structure; the tower is visible from almost all corners of London.

Hernan Pinera/flickr.com

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, tourists cannot admire the bell itself, but they have a chance to see an equally outstanding structure, which is located on one of the towers of St. Paul's Cathedral. The bell, cast for this cathedral in 1881, weighs about 17 tons.