Big Ben

Big Ben
Main aliases:	Clock Tower St Stephen's Tower
Type:	Clock tower/bell
Place of origin:	London
Appearances:	see list
Memorable moment
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You may be looking for Big Ben from Pete’s World.

Big Ben was the name by which the clock tower on one end of the Houses of Parliament was most commonly known. It was also known simply as the Clock Tower, (COMIC: The Aquarius Condition) or St Stephen's Tower. (PROSE: Lucy Wilson)

History

In 1892, Clara Oswald, while serving as a governess under the alias Miss Montegue, claimed to her young charges that she was born behind Big Ben's face. She explained that it accounted for her acute sense of time. (TV: The Snowmen)

Later during the 1890s, a Tyrannosaurus rex, having been accidentally sent to the Thames after swallowing the Doctor's TARDIS, advanced on Big Ben before being encircled by the efforts of Scotland Yard using a series of sonic lanterns provided by Madame Vastra. The Half-Face Man, who had later murdered the dinosaur, met his end impaled on the spire of Big Ben after falling from his hot-air balloon in a confrontation with the Twelfth Doctor, with his top hat falling down the tower. (TV: Deep Breath)

In 1924, Shade Vassily planned to use Big Ben to power his ship. (PROSE: The Clockwise Man)

In January 1941, Jack Harkness tethered his ship to Big Ben. (TV: The Empty Child)

In 1976, Big Ben's clock face was bombed by Black Star. (PROSE: Love and War, No Future)

On 1 January 2005, the Eleventh Doctor barely avoided crashing his TARDIS into Big Ben as he attempted to stabilise it following his regeneration. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

Big Ben being destroyed by the Slitheen. (TV: Aliens of London)

Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness dance upon a Chula warship, tethered to Big Ben. (TV: The Empty Child)

In 2167, the chimes of Big Ben rang for the first time in years to celebrate the end of the 22nd century Dalek invasion after the First Doctor defeated the Daleks. Despite the initial bombardment prior to the invasion, Big Ben was unscathed. It still stood thirty years later. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)

In 2254, Big Ben survived a Dalek invasion of Earth which saw London liberated by the Doctor. (GAME: Dalek Attack)

Destruction

In 2006, Big Ben was destroyed by a Slitheen craft, which sheared it in half. (TV: Aliens of London) This was seen by Elton Pope among many witnesses. (TV: Love & Monsters) Reconstruction proceeded shortly afterwards. (TV: The Christmas Invasion) Shortly after Big Ben was rebuilt, the last Steggosian attempted to release a deadly poison from the tower, but the Tenth Doctor stopped him. (PROSE: The Eyeless)

By the 28th century, Big Ben had been again destroyed. (TV: The Sensorites)

However, according to another account, in 4039, Big Ben destroyed in the Graxnix invasion of Earth. (COMIC: Hotel Historia)

Alternate timelines and universes

Sarah Jane and Luke Smith next to the remains of Big Ben. (TV: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)

In an alternate timeline created by the Black Guardian, where the First Doctor never left Gallifrey and became Lord President, Big Ben was still standing even as London was ruined by several species fighting over the Earth. This timeline was negated when the Seventh Doctor retrieved the Key to Time. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)

In the Trickster's World, Sarah Jane and Luke Smith stood on the rubble of Big Ben in the 21st century, and the Houses of Parliament, surveying the obliterated remains of London. Sarah Jane was revolted by what she had unwittingly caused by altering the timeline on 18 August 1951. (TV: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)

In a version of 2586 controlled by the Sodality, the tower of Big Ben was splintered away as if something had crashed into the side of it long ago. (PROSE: Child of Time)

Behind the scenes

The flipped clock face from Aliens of London.

• When the Slitheen craft crashes into Big Ben in Aliens of London, the on-screen scenes are flipped, causing the clock face(s) to appear back-to-front in the finished programme.
• Big Ben is actually the name of the main bell housed within the Westminster Clock Tower, and not the name of the clock tower itself.
• Big Ben was featured in Alister Pearson's cover artwork for the 1990 BBC Video release of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, which was also used on the 1990 edition of Terrance Dicks's novelisation of the story. The clock tower had not featured in the original artwork, but was added by Pearson at the request of BBC Video themselves — apparently to aid overseas sales.
• In the ultimately unproduced film The Dark Dimension, the Daleks were to have been among several alien races which simultaneously invade London, with one particular scene depicting a pair of white-coloured Daleks with glowing bases swooping past the face of Big Ben with guns blazing.