In addition to Mother Nature, pollution is also said to have taken a bite out of the tower's luster over the decades.Ī parliament spokesperson created air pollution for eating away at the tower's original limestone, which caused the need for hundreds of pieces of replacement stone. They started building the tower in 1843 and finished in 1859, making the tower more than 160 years old.Experts say the replacement of more than 400 cast iron roof tiles, as well as other masonry work in the 315-foot structure, should help prevent future water intrusion. The Palace of Westminster was destroyed in a catastrophic fire in 1834 and parliament decided that they would build a new clock tower as part of the restoration works. With four clockfaces on the tower, that’s a staggering 1,292 individual pieces of glass in total! #3 – Big Ben was built 164 years ago
#2 – The clock face is made from hundreds of individual pieces of glassĮvery clock face is intricately made up of 324 pieces of pot opal glass, all held together with a cast iron frame. The tower itself was previously known as ‘The Clock Tower’, but in 2012 it was renamed Elizabeth Tower to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Although most people know this iconic landmark as Big Ben, this is actually the name of the bell in the tower – which weighs a whopping 13.7 tonnes! There are a lot of theories about where this name came from one of them being that the bell was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the Chief Commissioner of Works, who was affectionately known as ‘Big Ben’.
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