Big Ben is one of London's best-known landmarks, and looks most spectacular at night when the clock faces are illuminated. You even know when parliament is in session, because a light shines above the clock face. The clock came into service in 1859 and was nicknamed "Big Ben". It chimes the hours to the tune of Handel's music. Big Ben is the biggest clock bell in Britain. It weighs 13,5 tons. The Clock Tower is 318 feet high. You have to go up 374 steps to reach the top. So the clock looks small from the pavement below the tower. The four clock dials are 22*/2 feet in diameter, the hour hands are nine feet long, and the minute hands are 14 feet. The bell weighs 1/2 tons and the hammer whichstrikes it weighs 8 tons. The clock bell was called Big Ben after Sir Benjamin Hall, who was given the job of having the bell hoisted up. Sir Benjamin was a very tall and stout man, whose nickname was "Big Ben". One day he said in Parliament, "Shall we call the bell St Stephen's? St Stephen is the name of the tower". But someone joked, "Why not call it Big Ben?" Now the bell is known all over the world by that name. The four dials of the clock are 23 feet square, the minute hand is 14 feet long and the figures are 2 feet high. Minutely regulated with a stack of coins placed on the huge pendulum, Big Ben is an excellent timekeeper, which has rarely stopped. The name Big Ben actually refers not to the clock-tower itself, but to the thirteen ton bell hung within. The bell was named after the first commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall. This bell came originally from the old Palace of Westminster, it was given to the Dean of St. Paul’s by William III. Before returning to Westminster to hang in it's present home, it was refashioned in Whitechapel in 1858. The BBC first broadcast the chimes on the 31st December 1923 - there is a microphone in the turret connected to Broadcasting House. During the second world war in 1941, an incendiary bomb destroyed the Commons chamber of the Houses of Parliament, but the clock tower remained intact and Big Ben continued to keep time and strike away the hours, its unique sound was broadcast to the nation and around the world, a welcome reassurance of hope to all who heard it. There are even cells within the clock tower where Members of Parliament can be imprisoned for a breach of parliamentary privilege, though this is rare; the last recorded case was in 1880. The tower is not open to the general public, but those with a "special interest" may arrange a visit to the top of the Clock Tower through their local (UK) MP.

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