images aligned to the audio content from the original podcast]
have to climb how many feet?
Male voice of tour guide John Steel: Altogether, to the belfry, 205.
Visitor: And how many steps is that?
Tour guide: 334.
Visitor: So you've got to be pretty fit?
Tour guide: Yes.
Visitor: What about the actual title of the place? We think of it as Big Ben, the tower
of Big Ben. Is that actually the title for it?
Tour guide: It's the Clock Tower -- it says so on the door here.
Visitor: So where did Big Ben come from?
Tour guide: Big Ben is the nickname of the Great Bell. Official name 'Great Bell',
but everybody calls the big bell 'Big Ben'.
[Transcriber's note: Sound of the two men climbing the stairs]
Visitor: It's a wonderful spiral staircase for this [er] wrought iron balustrade and
looking up - Goodness! It's the opposite of vertigo. You're looking up layer after
layer after layer of the spiral staircase. I hope you've got a good head for heights.
So, John, when was the Clock Tower built?
Tour guide: It was completed 1859.
Visitor: And who designed it?
Tour guide: [Er], Barry -- Charles Barry, together with Augustus Pugin. He [Transcriber's
note: Augustus Pugin ] was interested in the decorative side of it.
Visitor: Let's save our breath for the climb!
[Transcriber's note: After climbing more stairs]
Visitor: Phew! We've [er] arrived at moderately level ground. Where are we now, John?
Tour guide: Right, we're in the Prison Room.
Visitor: Prison Room?
Tour guide: Yeah, 114 steps so far, about a third of the way. This is called the Prison
Room, this is because we kept an MP here one night, when he wouldn't behave himself.
It's true. [Er], when you become elected an MP in this country, you can't take your
place in the Chamber or take part in proceedings unless you first swear allegiance to the Queen
or King. In 1880, Charles Bradlaugh, he was elected MP for Northamptonshire, and when
he come] to swearing in, he says 'Can't do that. I'm an atheist, I don't believe
in the Bible. Can I please affirm, or promise my loyalty'? They said 'No, you can't',
so, in return, he refused to leave. He interrupted the proceedings, he tried to swear himself
in and, basically, they got fed up with him, arrested him and kept him up here overnight.
A couple of years later, they passed the Affirmation Act, which now allows MPs to swear on the
Bible or not. They can swear on any religious item they want or not, as long as they promise
their allegiance.
[Transcriber's note: Sound of the two men climbing the stairs, then sound of door being
opened]
Visitor: Phew! How far above ground are we here?
Tour guide: Right. If you have a look in the door here, on the floor you'll see the figure
'182', 182 steps so far, just about halfway. Big Ben is the name of the Great Bell, or
the Hour Bell, and we had two attempts at making that. We wanted a 14-ton bell, which
at that time would have been the biggest bell in the country, so they went to a foundry,
a place called Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, and cast the Great Bell up there, came in
at sixteen and a half tons. The tower wasn't ready for it, so they put it up in the gantry
and they tested it.And that was alright, until, a few months later, along came Mr Denison.
He's the man who designed it. And he weren't happy. He wanted a bigger sound, so he doubled
the hammer size to half a ton, and, after three weeks, it broke. We'd had it for ten
months, so we had to go out to tender again, and this time Mears of Whitechapel give us
a 13 and a half-ton bell, and they took the Great Bell up in one lift. It took 32 hours'
continuous winding by 8 men at a time, and it's up there now.
[Transcriber's note: Sound of climbing stairs]
Tour guide: We're at the clock mechanism room. [Transcriber's note: Sound of ticking]
This is the Great Clock, or the Westminster Clock. It's the largest, most powerful,
most accurate public clock in the world. Mechanical, of course.
Visitor: There's a wonderful inscription, in [er] raised metal, along the frame of the
clock: 'This clock was made in the year of Our Lord 1854 by Frederick Dent of The
Strand and the Royal Exchange, Clockmaker to The Queen, from the designs of Edmund Beckett
Denison QC, fixed here 1859'. Tour guide: Correct. It's 15 feet long,
4 feet wide, 18 inches on the bedplate and total weight is 5 tons. This section here,
this set of wheels, is known as the 'Strike train' [Transcriber's note: Camera focuses
on the 'Strike train']. All that does is operate the hammer for Big Ben. If you
come over this way - this one's going to work shortly - this is called a 'Quarter
train' or the 'Chiming train'. This is the one that actually plays the tune. [Transcriber's
note: Camera focuses on the 'Chiming train', then sound of 'Chiming train' operating]
the quarter hour]. What's that?
Visitor: That's the quarter hour. [Transcriber's note: in answer to the Tour Guide's question]
Tour guide: That's the quarter hour, yes. When they decided to have a clock up here,
one of its criteria was it had to be accurate to a second a day. Now this was unheard of
in Victorian times. In Victorian times, if you had a turret clock running at a minute,
or two minutes, a day accuracy, it was considered to be a pretty good clock. Now, if you have
a look on the clo -, on the thing down there, you'll see a stack of pennies.
Visitor: These are old copper pennies. [Transcriber's note: old-style coins, pre-1971]
Tour guide: Old copper pennies. Now, if you put one of these pennies on that stack, you'll
speed the clock up by two-fifths of a second a day. If you take a penny off, you'll slow
it down by two-fifths of a second a day.
[Transcriber's note: Sounds unclear here]
[Transcriber's note: Sound of climbing stairs]
[Transcriber's note: Sound of Big Ben striking]
Visitor: That's loud. [Transcriber's note: Sound of door opening] Wow! Coming through
the door, suddenly, here we are, behind the big glass roundel of the clock face. It's
stunning!
Tour guide: So have a look by Number 9 up there. Can you see the shadow of the minute
hand? It moves every two seconds. That's because we have a two-second pendulum. Every
time the clock goes 'tick', the hands move.
Visitor: And there it goes, inch by inch.
Tour guide: And the hour hand is up there as well. The face itself is 23 feet across,
made out of cast iron sections, and there's 312 bits of glass in it. Weight of each face
is 4 tons. The minute hand is 14 feet long, it's a hollow copper tube. The hour hand
is solid bronze, at 9 feet. If you like to look that way, at the lighting, originally,
we used to burn gas. [Transcriber's note: Camera focuses on the lighting fixtures].
And that's what the hoops in the wall are for, for the gasman to climb up and light
the gases, because the lights go on at sunset and switch off at sunrise. In 1906, we put
electric light bulbs in, and then in 1994, we put these in -- these are low-energy,
high-efficiency, long-life bulbs. We went green long before anybody else did.
Visitor: So, at night, that glowing clock face that you see on the skyline is powered
by these bulbs?
Tour guide: There are 28 of them.
[Transcriber's note: Sound of the two men moving along]
Tour guide: Now, we clean the face, these faces, about every 5 years. [Transcriber's
note: Camera focuses on men cleaning the outside of the clock face].
Visitor: I could imagine it's relatively easy to clean the inside of the face, but
the outside might present one or two problems.
Tour guide: What we do is, we get all of half a dozen young fellas, tie ropes round them
and push them off the top. They abseil down on the outside.
[Transcriber's note: Sound of Tour Guide and visitor climbing further steps to bell
chamber]
Tour guide: Well done, you made it!
Visitor: Whoo! So, this is the top. Here's the bell, here's Big Ben, and there's
London, all round us, on a rainy day. [Transcriber's note: Camera focuses on Westminster Bridge].
Of course, there's not just the one bell, there are several, to ring the chimes.
Tour guide: Yes, four quarters and the Great Bell. Keep an eye on Number 3 bell up there
-- that's the first hammer to move. As soon as that moves, you've got half a second
to plug your ears. Otherwise, you will jump. [Transcriber's note: picture of a packet
of ear plugs] Right, so this is Big Ben -- 7 foot 6 high,
9 foot wide, 8 inches thick, weighs 13 and a half tons. 3 months after this one was put
up here, it cracked.
Visitor: What effect does that have on the chime?
Tour guide: None. The crack doesn't go all the way through the bell, it's only about
an inch and a quarter deep. It's supposed to ring E below Middle C [Transcriber's
note: intended Musical notes for the bell], but, unless you've got perfect pitch, you
wouldn't find out it's just ever so slightly flat. Is that the biggest bell in the world?
It's no longer the biggest bell in the country, but it's the most famous bell in the world,
and that's because millions of people listen to it every day and can recognise it. We transmit
the sound live on the BBC at 6 pm and midnight, and millions of people listen to it.
[Transcriber's note: Sound of Big Ben chiming and striking. Do we want to include the sheet
music for Big Ben chimes? See http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Musical_notes_for_big_ben_chime]
[Transcriber's note: End of video]