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73-791: The Victoria Clock Tower , also known as the Diamond Jubilee Clock Tower , is a heritage-registered clock tower located in Christchurch , New Zealand. Designed by Benjamin Mountfort , it is registered as a "Historic Place – Category I" by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust . Mountfort designed the clock tower in ca 1858, to be placed on top of the first (wooden) section of the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings . The iron tower and clock

146-463: A church or municipal building such as a town hall . Not all clocks on buildings therefore make the building into a clock tower. The mechanism inside the tower is known as a turret clock . It often marks the hour (and sometimes segments of an hour) by sounding large bells or chimes , sometimes playing simple musical phrases or tunes. Some clock towers were previously built as Bell towers and then had clocks added to them. As these structures fulfil

219-460: A deadbeat escapement and remontoire as originally designed, he invented a double three-legged gravity escapement , which provides the best separation between pendulum and clock mechanism, thus mitigating the effects of rain, wind and snow on the dials. Denison never patented his design, and it quickly became the standard on all new high-quality tower clocks. On top of the pendulum is a small stack of pre-decimal penny coins ; these are to adjust

292-474: A mannequin , every hour. It was possible to re-program the length of day and night daily in order to account for the changing lengths of day and night throughout the year, and it also featured five robotic musicians who automatically play music when moved by levers operated by a hidden camshaft attached to a water wheel . Line (mains) synchronous tower clocks were introduced in the United States in

365-421: A chimney, until around 1914. The 2017–2021 conservation works included the addition of a lift (or elevator) that was installed in the shaft. Its foundations rest on a layer of gravel, below which is London Clay . Owing to this soft ground, the tower leans slightly to the north-west by roughly 230 mm (9.1 in) over 55 m height, giving an inclination of approximately 1 ⁄ 240 . This includes

438-615: A clock added in 2002, has a roof height of 240 m (790 ft), and an antenna height of 272 m (892 ft). The Abraj Al Bait , a hotel complex in Mecca constructed in 2012, has the largest and highest clock face on a building in the world, with its Makkah Royal Clock Tower having an occupied height of 494.4 m (1,622 ft), and a tip height of 601 m (1,972 ft). The tower has four clock faces, two of which are 43 m (141 ft) in diameter, at about 400 m (1,300 ft) high. Elizabeth Tower Big Ben

511-753: A clock was put up in a clock tower, the medieval precursor to Big Ben , at Westminster , in 1288; and in 1292 a clock was put up in Canterbury Cathedral . The oldest surviving turret clock formerly part of a clock tower in Europe is the Salisbury Cathedral clock , completed in 130. A clock put up at St. Albans , in 1326, 'showed various astronomical phenomena'. Al-Jazari of the Artuqid dynasty in Upper Mesopotamia constructed an elaborate clock called

584-421: A community project, financed by local businesses, in 1978. More substantial renovation was carried out in 2003–2004, including earthquake strengthening. The middle section of the tower was braced with steel, and rods were inserted into the stonework. The renovation budget was NZ$ 295,000. On 2 April 1985, the clock tower was registered as a Category I heritage item, with the registration number being 3670. The tower

657-530: A feature called St Stephen's Tower , located above the public entrance. On 2 June 2012, the House of Commons voted in support of a proposal to change the name from the Clock Tower to Elizabeth Tower in commemoration of Elizabeth II in her Diamond Jubilee year, since the large west tower known as Victoria Tower had been renamed in tribute to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. On 26 June 2012,

730-455: A legacy from when English monarchs claimed to rule France. A ventilation shaft running from ground level up to the belfry, which measures 16 feet (4.9 m) by 8 feet (2.4 m), was designed by David Boswell Reid , known as "the grandfather of air-conditioning". It was intended to draw cool, fresh air into the Palace of Westminster; in practice this did not work and the shaft was repurposed as

803-671: A new five-floor block. Two floors are occupied by the current chamber, which was used for the first time on 26 October 1950. The clock ran accurately and chimed throughout the Blitz . The main bell, officially known as the "Great Bell" but better known as Big Ben, is the largest bell in the tower and part of the Great Clock of Westminster. It sounds an E-natural. The original bell was a 16- ton (16.3- tonne ) hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons . It

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876-596: A planned maximum of 22 mm increased tilt due to tunnelling for the Jubilee line extension. In the 1990s, thousands of tons of concrete were pumped into the ground underneath the tower to stabilise it during construction of the Westminster section of the Jubilee line. It leans by about 500 mm (20 in) at the finial. Experts believe the tower's lean will not be a problem for another 4,000 to 10,000 years. A new feature

949-486: A reminder of the earthquake. Christchurch City Council began restoration work on the historic clock tower, corner of Montreal and Victoria Streets, in March 2013. On 22 October 2014, Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel officially unveiled the newly restored Central City landmark, Jubilee Clock Tower, and placed a time capsule on the site for future generations to discover. The careful restoration has included deconstructing each of

1022-545: A turn so the new hammer struck in a different place. Big Ben has chimed with a slightly different tone ever since, and is still in use today with the crack unrepaired. Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until " Great Paul ", a 16.75-ton (17 tonne) bell currently hung in St Paul's Cathedral , was cast in 1881. In August 2007, the bell's striker was replaced for the first time since installation. The origin of

1095-506: A week. The Keeper of the Clock is responsible for looking after the movement in addition to overseeing every aspect of maintenance around the Palace. A team of horologists are on call 24 hours a day to attend to the clock in the event of an emergency. On 10 May 1941, a German bombing raid damaged two of the clock's dials and sections of the tower's stepped roof and destroyed the House of Commons chamber. Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed

1168-608: Is currently occupied by the Petitions Committee , which oversees petitions submitted to Parliament. Journalists during Queen Victoria 's reign called it St Stephen's Tower . As members of Parliament originally sat at St Stephen's Hall, these journalists referred to anything related to the House of Commons as "news from St Stephens", a term that survives in Welsh-language political reporting as "San Steffan". The Palace does contain

1241-582: Is known for its reliability, and can be adjusted by adding or removing pre-decimal pennies from the pendulum . The Great Bell was cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and weighs 13.5 long tons (13.7 tonnes ; 15.1 short tons ). Its nickname may be derived from Sir Benjamin Hall , who oversaw its installation, or heavyweight boxing champion Benjamin Caunt . There are four quarter bells , which chime on

1314-535: Is known for its reliability. The designers were the lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison and George Airy , the Astronomer Royal . Construction was entrusted to clockmaker Edward John Dent ; after his death in 1853, his stepson Frederick Dent completed the work in 1854. As the tower was not completed until 1859, Denison had time to experiment before its installation in April that year: instead of using

1387-563: Is significant, as it is a landmark in Christchurch, and it was part of Mountfort's original design for the Provincial Council Buildings. The tower is further a remarkable example of High Victorian ironwork, and its use as a monument to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee are an indication of the colonial ties between New Zealand and Britain. The clock tower was seriously damaged in the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake , with

1460-427: Is square, measuring 40 feet (12.2 m) on each side, resting on concrete foundations 12 feet (3.7 m) thick. It was constructed using bricks clad on the exterior with sand-coloured Anston limestone from South Yorkshire, topped by a spire covered in hundreds of cast iron rooftiles. There is a spiral staircase with 290 stone steps up to the clock room, followed by 44 to reach the belfry, and an additional 59 to

1533-715: Is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster , and, by extension , for the clock tower itself, which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Originally known simply as the Clock Tower, it was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II . The clock is a striking clock with five bells. The tower

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1606-530: 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 bell's current nickname of "Big Ben" during a Parliamentary debate; the comment is not recorded in Hansard . Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard but, during testing, it cracked beyond repair and a replacement had to be made. The bell

1679-487: The BBC World Service , a practice that began on 31 December 1923. The sound of the chimes is sent live from a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected by line to Broadcasting House . At the close of the polls for the 2010 general election the results of the national exit poll were projected onto the south side of the tower. On 27 July 2012, starting at 8:12 a.m, Big Ben chimed 30 times, to welcome

1752-517: The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat a structure is defined as a building if at least fifty percent of its height is made up of floor plates containing habitable floor area. Structures that do not meet this criterion, are defined as towers . A clock tower historically fits this definition of a tower and therefore can be defined as any tower specifically built with one or more (often four) clock faces and that can be either freestanding or part of

1825-458: The Games of the 30th Olympiad , which officially began that day, to London. On 21 August 2017, Big Ben's chimes fell silent for four years to allow essential restoration work to be carried out on the tower. The decision to silence the bells was made to protect the hearing of the workers on the tower, and drew much criticism from senior MPs and Prime Minister Theresa May . The striking and tolling of

1898-797: The Parliament of Canada in Ottawa , and the Zytglogge clock tower in the Old City of Bern , Switzerland . The tallest freestanding clock tower in the world is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower (Old Joe) at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham , United Kingdom. The tower stands at 100 metres (330 feet) tall and was completed in 1908. The clock tower of Philadelphia City Hall

1971-437: The "castle clock" and described it in his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206. It was about 3.3 metres (11 feet) high, and had multiple functions alongside timekeeping . It included a display of the zodiac and the solar and lunar paths, and a pointer in the shape of the crescent moon that travelled across the top of a gateway , moved by a hidden cart and causing automatic doors to open, each revealing

2044-931: The 1920s. Some clock towers have become famous landmarks. Prominent examples include Elizabeth Tower built in 1859, which houses the Great Bell (generally known as Big Ben ) in London , the tower of Philadelphia City Hall , the Rajabai Tower in Mumbai , the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin , the Torre dell'Orologio in the Piazza San Marco in Venice , Italy , the Peace Tower of

2117-613: The Clock Tower, which resembles earlier Pugin designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall in Lancashire. Construction of the tower began on 28 September 1843. The building contractors were Thomas Grissell and Morton Peto . An inscribed trowel in the Parliamentary Archives records that Emily, sister of Peto's daughter-in-law, was given the honour of laying the first stone. It was Pugin's last design before his descent into mental illness and death in 1852, and Pugin himself wrote, at

2190-505: The House of Commons confirmed that the name change could go ahead. David Cameron , then prime minister, officially announced the change of name on 12 September 2012. The change was marked by a naming ceremony in which John Bercow , then Speaker of the House of Commons , unveiled a plaque attached to the tower on the adjoining Speaker's Green. Augustus Pugin drew inspiration from the clockmaker Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy when he designed

2263-516: The House of Commons, not via the tower entrance. It was last used in 1880 when atheist Charles Bradlaugh , newly elected Member of Parliament for Northampton , was imprisoned by the Serjeant at Arms after he protested against swearing a religious oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria. Officially, the Serjeant at Arms can still make arrests, as they have had the authority to do since 1415. The room, however,

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2336-606: The Westminster Quarters are imitated by other clocks and other devices, but the sound of Big Ben is preferred as the original and best. Big Ben is a focal point of New Year celebrations in the United Kingdom , with radio and television stations airing its chimes to welcome the start of the New Year. To welcome in 2012, the clock tower was lit with fireworks that exploded at every toll of Big Ben. Similarly, on Remembrance Day ,

2409-447: The air " I know that my Redeemer liveth " in Handel 's Messiah . The notional words of the chime, again derived from Great St Mary's and in turn an allusion to Psalm 37 :23–24, are: "All through this hour/Lord be my guide/And by Thy power/No foot shall slide". They are written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room. One of the requirements for the clock was that the first stroke of

2482-608: The beginning of the 20th century. The ornate surrounds of the dials are gilded. At the base of each dial is the Latin inscription DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM , which means "O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First". Unlike Roman numeral clock dials that show the "4" position as IIII, the Great Clock faces depict "4" as IV. The clock's gun metal hour hands and copper minute hands are 8.75 feet (2.7 m) and 14 feet (4.3 m) long respectively. When completed,

2555-550: The bells for important occasions, such as New Year's Eve and Remembrance Sunday , was handled via an electric motor; and at least one of the four clock faces always remained visible during the restoration. Scaffolding was put up around the tower immediately after the bells were silenced. The cost of the project to the taxpayers and creditors was originally estimated to be roughly £29 million (equivalent to £35.7 million in 2023), but it more than doubled, to £69 million (equivalent to £77.6 million in 2023). In February 2020,

2628-402: The bells remained silent with few exceptions. Elizabeth Tower, originally named the Clock Tower, and popularly known as "Big Ben", was built as a part of Charles Barry 's design for a new Palace of Westminster after the old palace was largely destroyed by fire on 16 October 1834. Although Barry was the chief architect of the neo-gothic palace, he turned to Augustus Pugin for the design of

2701-473: The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and the start of the two minutes' silence. In 1999, prior to the millennium New Year, a recording of the clock was released by London Records under the title "Millennium Chimes", with the artist labelled as Big Ben. It reached number 53 for the week ending 8 January 2000 (which included purchases prior to 31 December 1999). The chimes of Big Ben have also been used at

2774-401: The chimes of Big Ben returned to regular service for the first time since August 2017, preceding the hour bell being sounded at 11:00 a.m. local time, the first hour strike marking the beginning of two minutes of silence. The clock has become a cultural symbol of the United Kingdom , particularly in the visual media. When a television or film-maker wishes to indicate a generic location in

2847-483: The climb from ground level to the belfry is 334 steps. Its base is square, measuring 40 feet (12 m) on each side. The dials of the clock are 22.5 feet (6.9 m) in diameter. The clock uses its original mechanism and was the largest and most accurate four-faced striking and chiming clock in the world upon its completion. It was designed by Edmund Beckett Denison and George Airy , the Astronomer Royal , and constructed by Edward John Dent and Frederick Dent. It

2920-639: The clock and tower. Some authors of works about the tower, clock and bell sidestep the issue by using the words Big Ben first in the title, then going on to clarify that the subject of the book is the clock and tower as well as the bell. Along with the Great Bell, the belfry houses four quarter bells which play the Westminster Quarters on the quarter hours. The four quarter bells sound G ♯ , F ♯ , E, and B. They were cast by John Warner & Sons at their Crescent Foundry in 1857 (G ♯ , F ♯ and B) and 1858 (E). The Foundry

2993-399: The country, a popular way to do so is to show an image of the tower, often with a red double-decker bus or black cab in the foreground. In 2008, a survey of 2,000 people found that the tower was the most popular landmark in the United Kingdom. It has also been named as the most iconic film location in London . The sound of the clock chiming has also been used this way in audio media;

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3066-416: The definition of a tower they can be considered to be clock towers. Although clock towers are today mostly admired for their aesthetics, they once served an important purpose. Before the middle of the twentieth century, most people did not have watches, and prior to the 18th century even home clocks were rare. The first clocks did not have faces, but were solely striking clocks , which sounded bells to call

3139-536: The dials and clock hands were Prussian blue , but were painted black in the 1930s to disguise the effects of air pollution. The original colour scheme was reinstated during the 2017–2021 conservation work. Analysis of the paint layers found that no fewer than six different colour schemes had been used over the past 160 years. The Victorian glass was also removed and replaced with faithful reproductions made in Germany by glassmakers Glasfabrik Lamberts . The clock's movement

3212-457: The dials. Each is made of cast iron sections bolted together. The whole frame is 22.5 feet (6.9 m) in diameter making them the third largest in the UK . They each contain 324 pieces of opalescent glass. Originally, the dials were backlit using gas lamps, at first only when Parliament was sitting, but they have routinely been illuminated from dusk until dawn since 1876. Electric bulbs were installed at

3285-408: The hammer. According to the foundry's manager, George Mears, the horologist Denison had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified. For three years Big Ben was taken out of commission and the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells until it was repaired. To make the repair, a square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack, and the bell given an eighth of

3358-518: The hour (which sounds 25 seconds before the main bell tolls the hour). Because the low bell (B) is struck twice in quick succession, there is not enough time to pull a hammer back, and it is supplied with two wrench hammers on opposite sides of the bell. The tune is that of the Cambridge Chimes , first used for the chimes of Great St Mary 's church, Cambridge , and supposedly a variation , attributed to William Crotch , based on violin phrases from

3431-423: The hour bell should be correct to within one second per day. The tolerance is with reference to Greenwich Mean Time ( BST in summer). So, at twelve o'clock, for example, it is the first of the twelve hour-bell strikes that signifies the hour (the New Year on New Year's Eve at midnight). The time signalled by the last of the "six pips" ( UTC ) may be fractionally different. On 13 November 2022, Remembrance Sunday,

3504-431: The nickname "Big Ben" is the subject of some debate. The nickname was applied first to the Great Bell; it may have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall , who oversaw the installation of the Great Bell, or after English heavyweight boxing champion Ben Caunt . Now "Big Ben" is often used, by extension, to refer to the clock, the tower and the bell collectively, although the nickname is not universally accepted as referring to

3577-414: The quarter hours. Big Ben is a British cultural icon . It is one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and parliamentary democracy, and it is often used in the establishing shot of films set in London. The clock tower has been part of a Grade I listed building since 1970 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. The clock and tower were renovated between 2017 and 2021, during which

3650-543: The renovations revealed that the Elizabeth Tower had sustained greater damage than previously thought from the May 1941 bombing raid that destroyed the adjacent House of Commons . Other costly discoveries included asbestos in the belfry, the "extensive" use of lead paint, broken glass on the clock dials, and serious deterioration to the tower's intricate stone carvings due to air pollution . The cost of addressing these problems

3723-585: The sea journey, and it remained in the tower for a short time only. The iron tower, meanwhile, stood for several years in the courtyard of the Provincial Council Buildings. With the abolition of Provincial Government in New Zealand in 1876, the clock tower became the property of the Crown, but it was transferred to Christchurch City Council . After being stored for 30 years in a council yard in Worcester Street, it

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3796-405: The soot-stained dial frames having been stripped away. The clock faces were regilded, and the shields of St George repainted in their original red and white colours. The 1,296 pieces of glass that make up the clock faces have also been removed and replaced. In December 2021, after four years of renovations and restoration, the tower emerged from behind its scaffolding in time for the ringing in of

3869-447: The state funerals of monarchs on four occasions, chiming one stroke for each year of the monarch's life: firstly, at the funeral of King Edward VII in 1910, (68 strokes); secondly, at the funeral of King George V in 1936 (70 strokes); thirdly, at the funeral of King George VI in 1952 (56 strokes); and lastly, at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 (96 strokes). On some occasions, Londoners who live an appropriate distance from

3942-477: The surrounding community to work or to prayer. They were therefore placed in towers so the bells would be audible for a long distance. Clock towers were placed near the centres of towns and were often the tallest structures there. As clock towers became more common, the designers realized that a dial on the outside of the tower would allow the townspeople to read the time whenever they wanted. The use of clock towers dates back to antiquity . The earliest clock tower

4015-456: The time (12:51) stopped on the clock's face. Repairs in excess of NZ$ 700,000 were agreed to by Christchurch City Councillors in July 2012, with most of the cost to be reimbursed by insurance. Stones in the buttress columns and arches were loose or dislodged, and the finial spike needed to be repaired. The clock itself needed to be restored, but it was considered to leave one of the clock faces at 12:51 as

4088-503: 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 my designs for finishing his bell tower and it is beautiful". Completed in 1859, the tower is designed in Pugin's Gothic Revival style and is 316 feet (96.3 m) high, making it the third tallest clock tower in the UK . Its dials (at the centre) are 180 feet (54.9 m) above ground level. The tower's base

4161-413: The time of the clock. Adding a coin has the effect of minutely lifting the position of the pendulum's centre of mass, reducing the effective length of the pendulum rod and hence increasing the rate at which the pendulum swings. Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.4 seconds per day. It keeps time to within a few seconds per week. It is hand wound (taking about 1.5 hours) three times

4234-554: The top of the spire. Above the belfry and the Ayrton Light are 52 shields decorated with national emblems of the four countries of the UK : the red and white rose of England's Tudor dynasty , the thistle of Scotland, shamrock of Northern Ireland, and leek of Wales. They also feature the pomegranate of Catherine of Aragon , first wife of the Tudor king Henry VIII ; the portcullis, symbolising both Houses of Parliament; and fleurs-de-lis ,

4307-466: The top of the tower, which is lit when Parliament is sitting, was also fully dismantled and restored along with the other lights in the Belfry, being replaced with low-energy LEDs . One of the most visible changes to the tower has been the restoration of the clock-face framework to its original colour of Prussian blue , used when the tower was first built in 1859, with the black paint that was used to cover up

4380-411: The tower and Big Ben can, by means of listening to the chimes both live and on analogue radio, hear the bell strike thirteen times. This is possible because the electronically transmitted chimes arrive virtually instantaneously, while the "live" sound is delayed travelling through the air since the speed of sound is relatively slow. ITN 's News at Ten opening sequence formerly featured an image of

4453-463: The tower legs and the construction of a new internal reinforced concrete structure to strengthen them. The existing foundations were strengthened. The original stone was cut and used as a veneer in the same place it used to be on the clocktower. The clocktower's spire was straightened, strengthened and reinstated. Work was also undertaken to divert the artesian well that was found under the clocktower away from Montreal Street. The original clock mechanism

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4526-472: The tower with the sound of Big Ben's chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines of the day. The Big Ben chimes (known within ITN as "The Bongs") continue to be used during the headlines and all ITV News bulletins use a graphic based on the Westminster clock dial. Big Ben can also be heard striking the hour before some news bulletins on BBC Radio 4 (6 p.m. and midnight, plus 10 p.m. on Sundays) and

4599-511: Was added in 1873 by Acton Smee Ayrton , then First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings . The Ayrton Light is a lantern sited above the belfry and is lit whenever the House of Commons sits after dark. It can be seen from across London. Originally, it shone towards Buckingham Palace so Queen Victoria could look out of a window and see when the Commons were at work. Inside the tower is an oak-panelled Prison Room, which can only be accessed from

4672-563: Was also carefully serviced while restoration of the clocktower was underway. Clock tower Clock towers are a common sight in many parts of the world with some being iconic buildings. One example is the Elizabeth Tower in London (usually called " Big Ben ", although strictly this name belongs only to the bell inside the tower). There are many structures that may have clocks or clock faces attached to them and some structures have had clocks added to an existing structure. According to

4745-566: Was constructed in Coventry and arrived in December 1860 in 147 boxes, but it was determined that the building structure would be unable to support the tower's weight. The clock was then placed in the stone tower of the Provincial Council Buildings in Armagh Street, and whilst its face could not be seen, the chime could be heard for a distance of 2 miles. The clock was not in good repair, impacted by

4818-456: Was decided that the tower would be used as part of a monument to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria . A competition for a stone tower was held and won by the local architecture firm of Strouts and Ballantyne. The clock was returned to the United Kingdom for renovation, and the addition of chimes. In 1897 it was erected on a stone base at the intersection of Manchester Street, Lichfield Streets and High Streets and remained there until 1930 when it

4891-480: Was designed by Sir Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin in a Perpendicular Gothic Revival style and was completed in 1859. It is elaborately decorated with stone carvings and features symbols related to the four nations of the United Kingdom and the Anglo-Welsh Tudor dynasty . A Latin inscription celebrates Queen Victoria , in whose reign the palace was built. The tower stands 316 feet (96 m) tall, and

4964-431: Was estimated at £18.6 million (equivalent to £20.9 million in 2023), bringing the total budget for restoring the Elizabeth Tower to nearly £80 million (equivalent to £90 million in 2023). The 2,567 cast-iron roof tiles were removed and refurbished, and a lift was installed to make access easier, along with a basic toilet facility with running water , for the first time in the tower itself. The Ayrton Light at

5037-635: Was in Jewin Crescent, in what is now known as the Barbican , in the City of London. The bells are sounded by hammers pulled by cables coming from the link room—a low-ceiling space between the clock room and the belfry—where they are triggered by cables coming from the chime train. The quarter bells play a once-repeating, 20-note sequence of rounds and four changes in the key of E major : 1–4 at quarter past, 5–12 at half past, 13–20 and 1–4 at quarter to, and 5–20 on

5110-560: Was part of the tallest building in the world from 1894, when the tower was topped out and the building partially occupied, until 1908. Taller buildings have had clock faces added to their existing structure such as the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw , with a clock added in 2000. The building has a roof height of 187.68 m (615.7 ft), and an antenna height of 237 m (778 ft). The NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in Tokyo , with

5183-500: Was recast on 10 April 1858 at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13.5-ton (13.76-tonne) bell. The second bell was transported from the foundry to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen horses, with crowds cheering its progress; it was then pulled 200 ft (61.0 m) up to the Clock Tower's belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. It is 7 feet 6 inches (2.29 m) tall and 9 feet (2.74 m) diameter. This new bell first chimed on 11 July 1859; in September it too cracked under

5256-413: Was removed due to it being deemed a traffic hazard and impediment. The Hamilton Borough Council unsuccessfully tried to buy the clock tower at this point. It was relocated that year to its current location on a reserve at the intersection of Victoria and Montreal Streets and the clock was replaced. Restoration work was carried out in 1930 as part of the relocation. Further restoration was carried out as

5329-632: Was the Tower of the Winds in Athens , which featured eight sundials and was created in the 1st century BC during the period of Roman Greece . In its interior, there was also a water clock (or clepsydra), driven by water coming down from the Acropolis . In Song dynasty China , an astronomical clock tower was designed by Su Song and erected at Kaifeng in 1088, featuring a liquid escapement mechanism. In England,

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