Big Ben

Big Ben is the nickname of the Great Bell in the clock tower at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London. Strictly speaking it is not the name of the tower or the clock, though it is widely used for both. The tower was officially called the Clock Tower until 2012, when it was renamed the Elizabeth Tower.^[1] The tower has therefore spent most of its life being called by the name of something inside it, like a house called “Kettle”.

The crack

The bell first rang in 1859 and cracked within a few months. Rather than recast it, engineers turned the bell slightly so that the hammer struck a different spot, and fitted a lighter hammer. Big Ben has rung with its crack ever since, which is why its note is not quite the one originally intended.^[2]

It is the only famous bell in the world that has been out of tune for over a century and is loved for it.

Pennies

The great clock is famously accurate, and it is fine-tuned using old penny coins. Pennies are placed on a ledge on the pendulum; adding one penny raises the pendulum's centre of mass slightly and makes the clock gain about two-fifths of a second a day. The clock is therefore regulated by the cheapest adjustment in the history of timekeeping.

• Bell: Big Ben.
• Tower: Elizabeth Tower (since 2012).
• Crack: since 1859.
• Adjustment: one penny ≈ 0.4 seconds a day.

See also

• Hour – which it announces
• Echo – its reply from across the river
• Kettle – another thing that could name a house

References

1. Bell, B. (1859/2002). It Cracked. Fictional reprint.
2. Pendulum, P. (2008). “One Penny, Two-Fifths of a Second”. Horology Notes 1: 1.
3. Tower, E. (2012). Not My Name. Westminster Press.