Leanna's Living in London

Hello! As many of you know, yesterday I finally got the chance to climb up to see Big Ben and the inside of the tower! It is a priviledge afforded to only those British Citizens or people who live in England, and I figured I should take advantage of the opportunity. It was a lot of fun, and even though I couldn't take pictures, Big Ben has a flickr page, and so I can share the view with you!

(Before I get into any of the photos, I must, according to the Parliamentary Flickr Page, say the following:

Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament.

You should not authorise others to re-use the images If a photographer’s name is published on www.parliament.uk they should be credited

Photographs should not be used for marketing purposes or used for commercial gain.

If you wish to find out other images Parliament holds, please contact the House of Commons Information Office (hcinfo@parliament.uk or 020 7219 4272) or the House of Lords Information Office (hlinfo@parliament.uk or 020 7219 3107).

ALL photos and some text courtesy of UK Parliament.)

This is the entrance to the base of the tower. From here it's 334 steps to the bellfry, and another 59 to the light at the top (which we didn't get to).

Don't get too dizzy!

Whew... at the top. And just for the record, those aren't my shoes. My shoes are much more attractive.

This is the clock mechanism. The part on the right controls the quarterly bells, while the bit on the left controls the hammer for Big Ben. The middle bit keeps time.

At the top here you can see the winders for the mechanism. They act as a resistance, to keep the bells chiming at the appropriate speed, otherwise they might go nuts. Here's a video of them working:

As a side, the quarterly chimes have lyrics:

All through this hour

Lord be my guide

That by thy power

No foot shall slide.

Neat huh?

Again, here's the bit that controls the quarterly chimes. At the bottom right of the photo you can see this:

This is the winding handel that is used to manually wind up the chime train. It was wound manually, which took two men five hours each day, for the first fifty years.

The auto winder winds the strike and the chime. The going train is still wound by hand. All are wound three times a week taking about one and a half hours each time. Winding has to stop for the quarterly chimes.

These are the three weights that drive the three seperate trains: strike (Big Ben), chime and going (drives the hands). Together they weigh approximately 3 tonnes.

The Clock Tower (Big Ben) mechanics use pre-1971 coins to alter the speed of the clock's pendulum. This picture shows a tin with some of the coins and the log sheet the mechanics use when they're correcting the speed of the pendulum. One old penny makes the clock gain 2/5ths of a second per day.

This image shows Big Ben's damaged clock mechanism in 1976.

At first thought to have been caused by a bomb, the damage actually resulted from the sudden fracture of the flyfan arbor of the chiming train. Consequently, there was no check on the 1 1/2 ton weight of the chiming mechanism, and wheels, gears, cams and clicks were flung at high speed around the clockroom, and even through the ceiling. No one was hurt, because the accident happened at 4am.

These images show the interior of the clock face. Each face is 7.18m wide. On a sunny day (and ours was sunny), you can see the hands of the clock go round.

This pane of glass is actually an access door, should you need access to anything swinging by. The temptation to open the door and stick my head out was great.

Here's something interesting. The clock face numbers aren't Roman Numerals... Never noticed that did you?! There are no X's on the clock face. They are German Numerals... I think. I think that's what he said. But oh loo, there's a man poking his head out the access door. That could've been me!

While the clock face is now lit by energy efficient bulbs, they used to be lit by gaslight, and as such, needed all those ladders to get to them all. Another funny thought - originally, when everything was lit by gas, the room stayed quite hot, however, now that they are lit by energy efficient bulbs they don't generate any heat, so they actually have to heat two sides of the clock to keep the mechanism from freezing during the winter (hah) months.

Here is the view of Big Ben looking down from the Ayrton Light. The Ayrton Light is located at the top of the Clock Tower, and we didn't get that high. The Ayrton Light is lit when either the House of Commons or the House of Lords is sitting after dark. The light takes its name from Thomas Ayrton, the first Commissioner of Works who installed a gas lamp in the tower soon after it was built in 1885. It was installed at the request of Queen Victoria, so she could see from Buckingham Palace whether the members were "at work". Originally the light was blocked off on 3 sides so that the light only faced Buckingham Palace, but now everyone can see.

Look! It's Big Ben! This is where we got to stand.

The original bell was a 16 ton hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons. The bell was never officially named, but the legend on it records that the commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall, was responsible for the order. Another theory for the origin of the name is that the bell may have been named after a contemporary heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt.

Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard. Cast in 1856, the first bell was transported to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen horses, with crowds cheering its progress. Unfortunately, it cracked beyond repair while being tested and a replacement had to be made.

The bell was recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13½ ton bell. This was pulled 200ft up to the Clock Tower’s belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. It is 2.2 metres tall and 2.9 metres wide.

In September it too cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into service. According to the foundry's manager they 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 reinstalled.

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 a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place. Because, apparently, everyone was blaming each other (the bellmakers said that the hammer was too big and the hammer guys said that the bell people made the bell wrong), they took out a larger (as you can see) square of metal to test it. Turns out that it was because of a hammer that was too big. Big Ben has chimed with an odd twang ever since and is still in use today complete with the crack.

At the time of its casting, Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until "Great Paul", a 16¾ ton bell currently hung in St. Paul's Cathedral, was cast in 1881.

Bell metal is a 3:1 ratio of copper to tin, and it hella strong. The hammer is made of cast iron, and will need to be replaced eventually. You can't really see in the photo, but there is a little lump on the bell where the hammer is hitting it, and it is wearing a ditch into the hammer. Serious stuff.

And here's a video of what I got to see, for those of you who can't. No earplugs needed, I assure you.

Again, you can tell how the lyrics work when you hear the tune. After the same quarter-song is rung, there is an 8 second delay before Big Ben rings the hour. On the first strike of Big Ben, that's when the hour starts.

It wasn't as loud as I thought. While I'm sure my hearing would be damaged if I worked up here day and night without ear protection, I don't think I would've suffered by not wearing earplugs during one set of ringing. Although you could feel the metal framework in the building vibrate with each ring.

The view from the top was pretty remarkable, too. You can't go outside, but there's no glass - it's open to the elements save for some pigeon-resistant mesh, so it was quite breezy.

Here's an idea of where we were on the inside of the tower compared to what you see on the outside.

And yep, there are offices there. It'd be a pretty sweet place to have an office, but can be quite a climp up to get there. At least you'd know what time it was.

After our climb back down, we each got a lovely pamplet congratulating us on our climb and a special pin, which is cool since it celebrates 150 years of Big Ben.

If you ever happen to be living in London or in England, I would definitely suggest contacting your local MP and booking a tour. It was well worth it.

And I'm back, catching up on some posts that have been floating around for quite some time here. I attended one of the Science Museums Late Nights, which is an adult-only evening they host once a month (last month's is where we got our biohazard suits). This was back in August, and the theme was Space! Yay!

One of the cool things that went on that night was a talk with Sy Liebergot, who was the Apollo EECOM (Environmental and Electrical Communications or something like that) during all of the Apollo missions, including Apollo 13. It was wicked cool to hear him talk about the missions.

He started out by talking about Apollo 11 and all that, then moved on to Apollo 13.

He highlighted this photo, saying that it was taken about 5 minutes or so before the explosion that started all the crazy. Apparently up until that time, the mission had been quite routine, and Gene Kranz, the flight director, had said something along the lines of "We are bored down here". Hah - bet he never said that again.

Here's a copy of one of the newspaper headlines after the explosion.

And here's Sy Liebergot on the right and the director or curator on the left - not sure, but he's someone important in the museum. The book that Sy Liebergot wrote (and I bought!) is in the middle. The book is pretty awesome - it includes a CD with all of the original audio from the Apollo 13 missions - you can hear all the recordings from mission control. He's also got a website here.

Here is a reproduction of the control panal in one of the Apollo spacecraft. Very old school.

And, if you're wondering, this is the guy (Clint Howard), that portrayed Sy Liebergot in the movie. Not really look-alikes, but at least you have an idea who he is.

I haven't worked all the way through the book yet, but so far it's been a really good read!