The tower is at the northern end of the complex, not the east, and there are a few smaller towers more easterly than Big Ben. Pros: avoids the whole name problem by using a geographic term. The east tower: a description of Big Ben seen all over the press during the name change to the Elizabeth Tower, presumably pasted in from the same media release. Cons: republicans don't like it, and everyone will still call it Big Ben anyway. Pros: there's a certain harmony in nominally pairing the edifice with the Victoria Tower at the southern end of the building. The Elizabeth Tower: the new name to tie in with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Cons: it's too ambiguous a term to gain popular currency - there are many clock towers in London let alone the world, and calling it the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster is too much of a mouthful. Pros: it was once the official name, but has since been supplanted by the Elizabeth Tower. The Clock Tower: a term long used within the Palace and its communications. The tower never officially held this name, but many think it did. St Stephen's is another (smaller) tower over the main public entrance. They started building the tower in 1843 and finished in 1859, making the tower more than 160 years old.St Stephen's Tower: regularly used in newspapers, guide books and by 'that bloke down the pub who likes correcting people'. 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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