Qualla: Big Ben

Big Ben: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom1911, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 31 December 2024, just before midnight, the Great Bell at the north end of the Palace of Westminster struck the new year within about five-thousandths of a second of the correct time. This is the strange precision of Big Ben. The clock is hand-wound three times a week, takes about ninety minutes to wind, and is corrected — when it runs even a fraction fast — by adding or removing pre-decimal pennies from the top of the pendulum. Each penny shifts the rate by 0.4 seconds per day. The most accurate four-faced public clock in the world, when it was finished in 1859, is still running on Victorian mechanics, a stack of old copper coins, and the careful attention of a small team of horologists who are on call twenty-four hours a day.

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Image: Tom1911 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Big Ben: What the Name Means

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JSilv99, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name belongs first to the bell. "Big Ben" is the nickname of the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry on 10 April 1858 and weighing 13.5 long tons. By association, the name has crept outward — onto the clock face, onto the tower i...

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Image: JSilv99 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Big Ben: The Bell That Cracked Twice

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Lonpicman~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. The original 16-ton bell was cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons. The tower was not yet finished, so the bell was hung temporarily in New Palace Yard for testing. It cracked beyond repair. The replacement, the bell that hangs today, was cast at Whitech...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Lonpicman~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0

Big Ben: Pugin and the Tower

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Moorey, CC BY 2.0. The old Palace of Westminster burned on 16 October 1834 in an accidental fire that took most of the medieval complex with it. Charles Barry won the competition to rebuild and turned to Augustus Pugin for the Gothic detail. Pugin designed the Clock Tower in 1843, drawing on his ea...

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Image: Tony Moorey | CC BY 2.0

Big Ben: How the Clock Stays Accurate

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Morn; original photo by JSilv99, CC BY-SA 4.0. Denison's most lasting contribution was an invention he never patented: the double three-legged gravity escapement, which isolates the pendulum from the effects of wind pressure on the giant clock hands. The pendulum itself is two metres long and beats every two seconds. On top o...

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Image: Morn; original photo by JSilv99 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Big Ben: The Tower That Leans

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Miyagi165, CC BY-SA 4.0. Big Ben leans. Not by much — about 500 millimetres at the finial, after thousands of tons of concrete were pumped into the ground beneath it during the construction of the Jubilee line in the 1990s. Engineers think the lean will not be a problem for another four to ten thousand y...

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Image: Miyagi165 | CC BY-SA 4.0