Are you looking for some fun and educational activities to do with your kids while visiting London? If so, you might want to check out Big Ben, one of the most iconic landmarks in the city. Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Clock Tower at the north end of the Palace of Westminster. It was completed in 1859 and has been chiming ever since.
Big Ben Ideas for Kids
Here are some ideas for how you can enjoy Big Ben with your kids.
- Take quizzes. A great way to learn more about Big Ben and its history is to take some online quizzes. You can test your knowledge on facts like how tall is Big Ben, how many steps are there to the top, or what is the name of the clock tower by taking our very own Big Ben Quiz.
- Colouring pages. If your kids love to draw and colour, you can download a free printable Big Ben colouring page. You can also find some colouring books with Big Ben and other London landmarks on Amazon or in bookstores. You can use crayons, markers, pencils, or paints to create your own masterpiece.
- Take the Big Ben tour. If you want to see Big Ben up close and personal, you can book a guided tour of the clock tower. The tour lasts about 90 minutes and includes a visit to the mechanism room, where you can see how the clock works, and a climb up the 334 steps to the belfry, where you can see the Great Bell and hear it chime.
- Visit Horseferry Playground. If your kids need some space to run around and play, you can take them to Horseferry Playground, which is located near Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The playground has a variety of equipment for different ages, such as swings, slides, climbing frames, and a sandpit. There is also a picnic area where you can enjoy a snack or a meal.
- Go up in the London Eye. For a spectacular view of Big Ben and the rest of London, you should hop on the London Eye, which is a giant Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames. The London Eye has 32 capsules that can hold up to 25 people each. Each rotation takes about 30 minutes and gives you a 360-degree panorama of the city.
Big Ben is a wonderful attraction for kids and adults alike. It is a symbol of London and a part of its history and culture. By taking quizzes, colouring pages, and taking the tour, you can make your visit to Big Ben more fun and memorable.
London’s most iconic landmark?
Apart from being probably London’s most iconic landmark, the 180-year-old Big Ben is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world.
The Big Ben tower was raised as a part of a design for a new palace after the old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire in 1834. The new Palace of Westminster was built in a Neo-gothic style. The clock tower was designed by Augustus Pugin, his last design apparently before his final descent into madness and death.
The Big Ben tower is 96.3 metres (315.9 ft) high and the four clock faces 55 metres (180 ft) above ground. Despite being one of the world’s most famous tourist attractions, the interior of Big Ben’s tower is not open to the public for security concerns. The tower has no elevator, so any escorted VIPs and the like must climb the 334 limestone stairs to the top.
Did you know that Big Ben is leaning to the side?
Big Ben’s tower leans slightly to the north-west, by roughly 220 millimetres (8.66 inches) at the clock face, giving an inclination of approximately 1/250. Due to thermal effects, Big Ben oscillates annually by a few millimetres east and west.
Big Ben was once the largest four-faced clock in the world. Today, the Great Clock of Westminster still holds the title of the “world’s largest four-faced chiming clock”. Big Ben’s hour hand is 2.7 metres (9 ft) long and the minute hand is 4.3 metres (14 ft) long.
Big Ben in popular culture
Big Ben’s Clock Tower has appeared in many films, most notably in the 1978 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, in which the hero attempts to halt the clock’s progress by hanging from the minute hand of Big Ben’s western face; thus, preventing the detonation of a cunningly placed bomb and saving humanity as we know it!
Some surveys have found that Big Ben is the most popular landmark in the United Kingdom. Big Ben has also been voted the ‘Most Iconic London Film Location’. All we know is, that Big Ben remains a true symbol of London Big Ben’s beauty has stood the test of time for 180 years.
And it’s not a bad place to head for when you need to re-set your watch!
The Big Bong Theory
OK so you want to know everything there is to know about Big Ben’s bells and Big Ben’s ‘bongs’, you asked for it!
Take an extra shot of espresso in your latte and make yourself comfortable.
• Big Ben’s main bell and the largest bell in the tower is officially known as the Great Bell.
• The original main bell weighed in at 16 tons and was cast in 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees in the north of England!
Why is it called “Big Ben”?
The bell was never officially named, but the person responsible for commissioning the bell was Sir Benjamin Hall. This may be the origin of Big Ben’s name.
Another theory for the origin of Big Ben’s name is that the bell may have been named after a heavyweight boxer of the day, Benjamin Caunt. On balance, we prefer to think Big Ben was synonymous with a heavyweight boxer than a wimpish public servant!
Since the tower that was itself to become known as Big Ben was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard, Westminster. The bell was then transported to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen horses, with crowds cheering its progress
As fate would have it, the Big Ben bell cracked beyond repair while being tested and a replacement had to be made. The new bell was recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry weighing in at 13½ tons.
Casting the Great Bell
At the time of its casting, Big Ben was the largest bell in the United Kingdom. It remained so until 1881 until “Great Paul”, a 16¾ ton bell currently hung in St. Paul’s Cathedral, was cast.
The new Big Ben bell was hauled 200ft up to the Clock Tower’s belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. The bell is 2.2 metres tall and 2.9 metres wide. Big Ben’s new bell first chimed, or ‘bonged’, in July 1859.
Big Ben cracking under the hammer
As fate would again have it, the new Big Ben bell also cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into service.
Accusations flew from the foundry that a hammer had been used on the Great Bell that was more than twice the maximum weight specified.
For three years the Big Ben bell was taken out of commission and the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells until the Great Bell was reinstalled.
To make good the repair, a square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack, and the Big Ben bell gave an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place.
Big Ben has chimed with an odd twang (or barmy bong?) ever since and is still in use today complete with the ancient crack.
We’re sure that Big Ben’s imperfections go unnoticed today by the tens of millions of ears that tune in to Big Ben’s glorious chimes, literally around the clock!
That’s the end of our talking a lot of ‘bells’.
Let’s hope the double espresso shot got you to the end!
Big Ben – London’s Timepiece
Is Big Ben the most famous clock in the world? Who wouldn’t be familiar with those huge clock faces and those rib-shaking, hourly ‘bongs’?
Somebody who’s never seen the BBC perhaps, or ITV’s ‘News at Ten’?
The Big Ben clock tower is a place that London’s tourists flock to and it’s one of London, and indeed the’ UK s most popular attractions.
Certainly, Big Ben’s clock is famous for its reliability…
Installing the pendulum
The pendulum is installed within an enclosed windproof box sunk beneath the clock room. It is 3.9m long, weighs 300 kg and beats every 2 seconds. Big Ben’s clockwork mechanism is in a room below and weighs 5 tons.
The clock of Big Ben has an interesting feature. On top of the clock’s pendulum is a small stack of old penny coins. Believe it or not, these are used to adjust the time of Big Ben’s clock. Adding or subtracting coins has the effect of minutely altering the position of the pendulum’s centre of mass, the effective length of the pendulum rod and hence the rate at which the pendulum swings. Adding or removing a penny will change Big Ben’s clock’s speed by 0.4 seconds per day. How high tech is that?
Damage during World War 2
During the Blitz, the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) was hit by German bombing, on 10 May 1941, a bombing raid damaged two of Big Ben’s clockfaces and sections of the tower’s stepped roof. Bombs also destroyed the House of Commons chamber. Despite the heavy bombing Big Ben’s clock ran accurately and chimed throughout the Blitz.
Big Ben being out of service
Like most of us, Big Ben has had a few ‘hiccups’ during its 180-year lifetime.
- In 1916, for two years during the First World War, Big Ben’s bells were silenced, and the clock face darkened at night to prevent an attack by German Zeppelins.
- During the Second World War, from the beginning of September 1939, although Big Ben’s bells continued to ring, the clock faces were darkened at night to prevent guiding enemy pilots to central London (the Blitz).
- On New Year’s Eve 1962, Big Ben’s clock slowed due to heavy snow and ice on the long hands, causing the pendulum to detach from the clockwork mechanism. It is designed to do this in such circumstances, the objective being to avoid serious damage elsewhere in the mechanism. The pendulum continued to swing freely but Big Ben chimed in the new year 10 minutes late!
- The first and only major breakdown of Big Ben’s clock occurred on 5 August 1976. The speed regulator of Big Ben’s chiming mechanism finally broke after 100+ years of torsional fatigue. This resulted in the fully-wound 4-ton weights applying all their energy into Big Ben’s chiming mechanism in one go.
- A great deal of damage was caused, and Big Ben’s Great Clock was shut down for a total of 26 days over nine months. The clock was reactivated on 9 May 1977 resulting in the longest break in its operation since Big Ben’s clock was built.
- On 27 May 2005, Big Ben’s clock stopped at 10:07 pm local time. This may have been due to the hot weather (temperatures in London had reached an unseasonal 31.8 °C (90 °F)). Big Ben’s clock restarted but stopped again at 10:20 pm local time and remained still for about 90 minutes before starting again.
- On 29 October 2005, the mechanism of Big Ben’s clock was stopped for about 33 hours, the lengthiest maintenance shutdown in 22 years.
- On 5 June 2006, Big Ben’s “Quarter Bells” were taken out of commission for four weeks to repair a bearing holding one of the quarter bells, damaged from years of wear and tear.
- A 6-week stoppage for maintenance of Big Ben’s clock started on 11 August 2007. Bearings in the clock’s drive train and the “Great Bell” striker were replaced, for the first time since installation.
- During the maintenance works, the clock of Big Ben was not driven by the original mechanism, but by an electric motor.
- In 2017, the government announced it would start a four-year restoration process, “from the gilt cross and orb at its tip to the bottom of its 334-step staircase”.
- The £80 million undertaking is the most expensive and most complex conservation project in the tower’s history.
- In 2022 the restoration came to completion after exceeding the deadline and running over budget. The scaffolding was finally removed showing the clock’s iconic dials to their original colour – Prussian blue – after experts discovered the shade under layers of black paint.
OK, so Big Ben has had a few ‘issues’ down the years but how iconic, how reliable, and how uplifting to know the old fellow is there! For more than 180 years, Big Ben has stood proudly over the Houses of Parliament, the UK’s seat of government.
Big Ben is like an old friend to Londoners and London visitors. Big Ben was here before us and will still be here after we are just a memory. And the regular chimes of our old friend every 15 minutes are a constant reminder to all of us that time waits for no man.
Taking young kids sightseeing in London? Check out Horseferry Playground right next to the Palace of Westminster on the Thames Path. It’s a great little playground perfect for pre-school kids to have a break from the busy streets of London.