By Jake Crump

And Anthony “the cat” DelGatto

The Great Clock of Westmintser

The clocktower was created 150 years ago.It is the largest 4-faced chiming clock tower

in the world.It is the 3rd largest free standing clock tower

in the world.

Facts

The bottom 200 ft of the Clock Tower's structure consists of brickwork with sand colored Anston limestone cladding. The remainder of the tower's height is a framed spire of cast iron. The tower is founded on a 49 ft square raft, made of 9.8 ft thick concrete, at a depth of 13 ft below ground level. The four clock faces are 180 ft above ground. The interior volume of the tower is 164,200 cubic feet. It is 315 feet high.

Deminsions

The clock faces are set in an iron frame 23 ft in diameter, supporting 312 pieces of opal glass, rather like a stained-glass window.

Continued

The tower was raised as a part of Charles Barry's design for a new palace, after the old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire on the night of October 22, 1834.

The new Parliament was built in a Neo-gothic style.

Why it was created

The clocktower is famous for its reliability.During The Blitz, the Palace of Westminster was

hit by German bombing, on 10 May 1941, a bombing raid damaged two of the clockfaces and sections of the tower's stepped roof and destroyed the House of Commons chamber. Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed a new five-floor block. Two floors are occupied by the current chamber which was used for the first time on the 26th of October 1950. Despite the heavy bombing the clock ran accurately and chimed throughout the Blitz.

More facts

On new years eve 1965, the clocktower broke down due to the snow and cold temperatures, and thus it rung in the new year 10 minutes late.

Malfunctions

The clock has become a symbol of the United Kingdom and London.

The clocktower appeared in the movie Shanghai Knights starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson.

It is also destroyed in the movie Mars Attacks by a UFO.

It is nicknamed “big ben” even though originally only the bell was.

The name Big Ben comes from Benjamin Hall.

Even more facts

The main bell is called the “great bell”.It is thought that the bell was originally to be

called Victoria or Royal Victoria in honour of Queen Victoria, but that an MP suggested the nickname during a Parliamentary debate; the comment is not recorded in Hansard.

Etc.

On top of the pendulum is a small stack of old penny coins; these are to adjust the time of the clock. Adding or subtracting coins has the effect of minutely altering the position of the pendulum's centre of mass, the effective length of the pendulum rod and hence the rate at which the pendulum swings. Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.4 second per day.

It is 11 floors high and takes 334 steps to reach the belfry.

In april of 2007, 7 suicide bombers planned to blow up Big Ben. They failed, as their explosives blew up on their way there.

The design for the Clock Tower was Pugin's last design before his final descent into madness and death, and Pugin himself wrote, at the time of Barry's last visit to him to collect the drawings: "I never worked so hard in my life for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all the designs for finishing his bell tower & it is beautiful."

Pictures