Last public tour of Big Ben for three years as restoration gets underway

Ashley Coates spoke to the Keeper of the Great Clock about the work that needs to be done to restore Parliament’s world-famous clock
Image: UK Parliament/Stephen Pike
Ashley Coates16 December 2016

It’s a UNESCO world heritage site, a global architectural icon, and one of the most recognisable buildings in the world. It’s also slightly leaning, and at clock face level, 55 metres above the ground, it tilts 0.22 metres towards the northwest.

This results in an inclination of about 1/250 (0.04 degrees), making it just about discernible to the casual onlooker.

The clock tower shifted very slightly when it was completed in 1859, and again following underground excavations during the extension of the Jubilee Line and the redesign of Westminster Station. While the lean does not present any concerns, monitoring does take place on a regular basis and no further movement has been recorded.

Sadly, the lean is just the beginning of the Victorian tower’s difficulties.

Parliamentary Clock Mechanic Ian Westworth
Image: ©UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor

Starting from 2017, the Elizabeth Tower will be closed to tours while a three year period of restoration gets underway, the first major work on the building for over thirty years. It will come at a cost of £29 million and involves periods where the clock will need to be stopped and the bells will fall silent.

The monumental task of inspecting and repairing the tower falls to Steve Jaggs, Keeper of the Great Clock as well as Clock Mechanic Ian Westworth, and their colleagues in the Commons maintenance team.

“We have a legal as well as a moral obligation to maintain this tower for future generations to enjoy”, Steve tells me, “it’s suffering from the usual defects you would expect from a building of its age, but unless we act now to do this work, it will cost more and take longer to do”.

“The clock mechanism is nearly 160 years old, so there’s bits of it that are starting to show signs of wear”, says Ian. “We will be taking every single nut and bolt off, inspecting it for cracks, corrosion, distortion”.

Rust on the iron tracery on the west clockface.
Image: ©UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor

Remarkably, Parliament still uses the Victorian time-keeping mechanism installed shortly after construction finished. Despite its age, and the famous use of penny coins to keep the pendulum in time, the clock remains incredibly accurate. The chiming mechanism has only had one major breakdown, in 1976, when the air speed regulator broke and the winding gear disintegrated resulting in a significant malfunction. Big Ben was silenced for 26 days, during which time Radio 4 reverted to using “pips” rather than its usual live broadcasts of the belfry’s “bongs”.

The tower itself is also going to receive a lot of attention during the three-year programme. “We’ll be able to inspect and repair bits of stone that are degraded, or have come loose”, says Steve, “the cast iron roof will have to come off, as has been the case with the rest of the palace. Each tile will be given a unique number, restored off site and then return to the exact position it was in before”.

Although Elizabeth Tower’s tours have now closed, the rest of the Palace of Westminster will remain open up until the early 2020s, when its own restoration project is expected to begin.

The Keeper of the Great Clock, Steve Jaggs.
Image: ©UK Parliament/Mark Duffy

Much of the palace is publicly accessible, and a number of venues across the House of Commons are available to hire for events when the House is not sitting.

You do not need to book a tour to visit the public viewing galleries in the House of Commons or the Lords. Debates in the chambers, select committee sessions, and Westminster Hall debates are usually accessible on the day, and for free. PMQs is different, owing to its popularity, the weekly event is ticketed. Tours of the Houses of Parliament can be arranged either through the Visitor Centre itself, or through your local MP.

Although around 12,000 people have been visiting Elizabeth Tower each year, and it is not part of the official tour of Parliament. The practice up until now has been to arrange bookings by contacting your local MP, who then arranges for constituents to join an official tour of the tower.

Big Ben is the largest of five bells in the Elizabeth Tower's belfry.
Image: ©UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor

The Palace of Westminster actually has three towers - Elizabeth Tower, Central Tower, and Victoria Tower. Situated in the House of Lords, Victoria Tower was built to house Parliament’s archives and contains acts of Parliament going back to the reign of Elizabeth I. Its temperature controlled archival rooms are the result of a major refurb that was completed in the 1960s.

The archives in Victoria Tower are particularly worth visiting now as it is likely they will be moved to the National Archives at Kew, or a similar facility, when work commences on the palace after 2020. This can be done by making an appointment through the team at the Parliamentary Archives.

MPs and Lords will vote on a plan to decamp from the Grade I listed palace in 2022, as a £3.9 billion project of restoration and renewal gets underway. A Commons spokesperson has described a full closure of the site for six years as ‘the quickest, most cost-effective and lowest risk option’, during which time all public tours will be closed.

Follow Ashley on Twitter @Ashley_Coates

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