View
562
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
The project on British architecture
Made by Tatiana Piven and Nataly Smirnova
“The Big Ben”
The Big Benhistory and the construction
The Clock Tower of the Palace of
Westminster-officially named Saint Stephen’s
Tower-is commonly known as the Big Ben.
The tower is one of the London’s most
famous landmarks
The Clock Tower was raised as a part of the
rebuilt Palace of Westminster destroyed by fire on
the night of 16 October 1834.
The tower was built by Augustus Pugin in 1844 in
gothic style as a symbol of the power and greatness
of the British Empire in the XIX century
The tower was completed in 1858 and is 96
meters high and has 16 storeys. Because of
the excavation of tunnels near Westminster
the rower tilts 0,9 mm each year since 2003.
It has 4 dials which are directed towards the 4
cardinal directions
The clock was the largest in the world and is still
the largest in Great-Britain. The clock faces have a
diameter of almost 7.5m. The hour hand is 2.7m
long and the minute hand measures 4.25m long.
There are even cells within the clock tower
where Members of Parliament can be
imprisoned for a breach of parliamentary
privilege, though this is rare; the last recorded
case was in 1880.
The clock's movement is famous for its reliability. The designers were the
lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison, and George
Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Construction was entrusted to clockmaker
Edward John Dent. The clockwork mechanism in a room below weighs 5
tons. Its pendulum is 4.0 m long, weighs 300 kg and beats every 2 seconds.
On top of the pendulum is a small stack of old penny coins. Adding or
removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.4 seconds per day.
There are five bells. The clock’s hour bell is the largest and is
commonly known as Big Ben. The other four are used as quarter
bells.
The main bell, officially known as the Great Bell, is the largest bell in the
tower, it’s better known by the nickname Big Ben. The hour bell was
probably named after Benjamin Hall, the First Commissioner of Works.
Some sources however claim the bell was named after Benjamin Caunt, a
British heavyweight boxing champion. It’s 16 tons weight.
The clock is known for its reliability, it has rarely failed during its long
life span. Even after the nearby House of Commons was destroyed by
bombing during World War II on May 1941, the clock kept on
chiming. The clock's mechanism, designed by Edmund Beckett
Denison, has a remarkable accuracy.
Recommended