They record the results along with the barometric pressure and temperature in the clock room in a log that has over 100 years of records – the actual recording today is on A4 paper on a clipboard and computer software is also used, of course, rather than some giant gilded book one might imagine.
They do this by taking a reference time by telephone, noted on a hand-held stopwatch, and then checked against the bell. The clockmakers also do a time check three times per week and oil the gears to keep Big Ben constantly accurate to within +/-2 seconds. The weights for the bells are wound with the help of an electric motor, but – and I’m not sure why this is necessary – the weight for the going train is cranked back up by hand three times a week by the three resident Westminster clockmakers or “clock managers.”
There is the strike train of gears which controls the Big Ben bell that sounds the hours, the chime train for the four bells that mark the quarter hours, and the going train for displaying the time on the clock faces. Big Ben is a “three-train flatbed clock,” and its mechanism can be divided into three parts each requiring its own power source.
Altogether now.Big Ben and clocks like it are powered by weights on steel cables with pulleys that drop slowly and must, of course, be wound back up regularly around a large drum. To the untrained ear though, the Westminster/Cambridge Chimes are quite the variation the opening of Handel's piece sounds so far removed, as to be a totally different composition.Īnyway, memorise the lyrics, and next time you hear Big Ben strike the hour, you'll be ready to sing along. That's some musical plagiarism on a Noel Gallagher level right there. And this tune is a variation on the four notes making up the fifth and sixth bars from I Know My Redeemer Liveth - part of Handel's Messiah. But the four-note tune itself (G sharp, F sharp, E and B in case you're wondering) is actually nabbed from the Cambridge Chimes, sometimes attributed to organ student William Crotch for the clock of Great St Mary's, Cambridge in 1793. Since they first chimed in 1859, the Westminster Chimes have gone on to inspire everything from Calypsonian classics to tacky doorbells.
Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand." The quarter bells shown hung around Big Ben, December 1858. He delights in every detail of their lives. It's unclear who penned the words, but they're said to be inspired by Psalm 37, specifically: "The Lord directs the steps of the godly. These are the words written to accompany the world-famous 'Westminster Chimes' or 'Westminster Quarters', the pattern of notes used to chime Big Ben's quarter hours (and which are played in their entirety on the hour). All through this hour/ Lord be my guide / That by thy power / No foot shall slide
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