HOW BIG BEN WAS BUILT
It’s one of the most famous sights in London’s skyline, but how and when was this clock constructed?
WORDS AILSA HARVEY
Big Ben is actually the bell of London’s iconic clock tower, rather than the tower itself, perched high on the banks of the River Thames at the Palace of Westminster, otherwise known as the Houses of Parliament. The tower, which was given the name Elizabeth Tower in 2012, was built shortly after the fire that ravaged the Palace of Westminster in 1834. The design of the replacement building was commissioned to architects Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, who designed the clock tower as part of the palace in the fashionable neo-Gothic style of the time. It wasn’t until September 1843 that construction work on Big Ben began, the challenge being to produce the world’s biggest and most powerful chiming clock.