

They started building the tower in 1843 and finished in 1859, making the tower more than 160 years old. Download Big Ben and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The Palace of Westminster was destroyed in a catastrophic fire in 1834 and parliament decided that they would build a new clock tower as part of the restoration works. Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about Big Ben. With four clockfaces on the tower, that’s a staggering 1,292 individual pieces of glass in total! #3 – Big Ben was built 164 years ago #2 – The clock face is made from hundreds of individual pieces of glassĮvery clock face is intricately made up of 324 pieces of pot opal glass, all held together with a cast iron frame. The tower is officially known as Elizabeth Tower. The tower itself was previously known as ‘The Clock Tower’, but in 2012 it was renamed Elizabeth Tower to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Description Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London and is usually extended to refer to both the clock and the clock tower as well. 292 steps to the clock faces and 334 steps to the Belfry where Big Ben, the Great Bell, hangs. Although most people know this iconic landmark as Big Ben, this is actually the name of the bell in the tower – which weighs a whopping 13.7 tonnes! There are a lot of theories about where this name came from one of them being that the bell was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the Chief Commissioner of Works, who was affectionately known as ‘Big Ben’. That’s the height of the Elizabeth Tower.
