Big Ben
Big Ben was the popular name by which the clock tower at the north-eastern end of the Palace of Westminster was most commonly known. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"81","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"}) It was also known simply as the Clock Tower, (COMIC: The Aquarius Condition [+]Loading...["The Aquarius Condition (comic story)"], PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"81","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"}) St Stephen's Tower, (PROSE: Alien landing confirmed [+]Loading...["Alien landing confirmed (short story)"], Lucy Wilson [+]Loading...["Lucy Wilson (short story)"]) and Elizabeth Tower. (PROSE: Twenty-First-Century London [+]Loading...{"page":"28","1":"Twenty-First-Century London (feature)"}) "Big Ben" was in actuality the nickname of the tower's Great Bell. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"81","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"}, Twenty-First-Century London [+]Loading...{"page":"28","1":"Twenty-First-Century London (feature)"})
The tower housed five bells, the largest of which was the Great Bell. The clock tower was 96.3 metres tall. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"81","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"})
History
19th century
The tower was designed by the English architect Augustus Pugin when the Palace was rebuilt following a fire in 1834, and the clock was started in September 1859. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Brave New World","page":"49","chaptnum":"2","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"})
In 1892, Clara Oswin 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)
20th century
In 1924, Shade Vassily planned to use Big Ben to power his ship. (PROSE: The Clockwise Man)
Whilst the Palace was hit fourteen times during the Blitz, the clock remained operational and accurate throughout the Second World War, although it was not illuminated. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Brave New World","page":"49","chaptnum":"2","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"})
In January 1941, Jack Harkness tethered his ship to Big Ben. (TV: The Empty Child) For the only time between September 1939 and April 1945, Big Ben's lights were switched back on as Jack danced with Rose on top of his Chula warship alongside the tower. It was not recorded whether this itself led to one of the successful German strikes on the Palace of Westminster. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Brave New World","page":"49","chaptnum":"2","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"})
In 1976, Big Ben's clock face was bombed by Black Star. (PROSE: Love and War, No Future)
21st century
After Christmas 2004, Lee met the Ninth Doctor near Big Ben to find the Doctor looking up at it, violently laughing. The Doctor told Lee to "make the most of it while you can", and Lee hurried off, thinking the Doctor was drunk. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)
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)
In 2006, Big Ben was destroyed by a Slitheen craft, which sheared it in half. (TV: Aliens of London, PROSE: Operation London) This was seen by Elton Pope among many witnesses. (TV: Love & Monsters) Reconstruction proceeded shortly afterwards, (TV: The Christmas Invasion) when Prime Minister Harriet Jones ordered the rebuilding to begin soon after she took office. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"Everything Changes","page":"81","chaptnum":"3","1":"The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"})
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)
22nd century
In 2167, the chimes of Big Ben rang for the first time in years to celebrate the end of the 2150s Dalek invasion of Earth 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)
23rd century
In 2254, Big Ben survived a Dalek invasion of Earth which saw London liberated by the Doctor. (GAME: Dalek Attack)
Later history
By the 28th century, Big Ben had again been destroyed. (TV: The Sensorites)
In 4039, Big Ben was destroyed during the Graxnix invasion of Earth. (COMIC: Hotel Historia)
Behind the scenes
- 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.
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