GERALDINE and I have been in the capital, and we had a nice view, if distant, of the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament. Of course, most people call it Big Ben, but that’s the bell inside with the famous bongs.

In fact, when it was built in 1859, the tower was called the Clock Tower, amazingly. The tower is 316ft (96m) high – the height of 21 London buses stacked vertically – and is decorated with symbols from the four countries of the UK.

The clock was considered the most accurate four-faced clock in the world on its completion and is adjusted by adding or taking away old pennies on the pendulum.

The tower has 12ft foundations but even so leans slightly, about 20 inches, due to being on London clay and the effect of the excavations for the Jubilee underground line. The tower has 11 floors and there are 334 steps up to the belfry.

The bit everyone knows is actually the bell. Technically called the Great Bell, it is over 13 tonnes in weight, and was named Big Ben after Sir Benjamin Hall, the Minister of Public Works, who was 6ft 4in tall. He was instrumental in reforming London’s engineering works and health systems.

This is actually the second bell, the first one cracking after about a year and being replaced by the Whitechapel Foundry. It was the biggest bell in the UK until Big Paul, at almost 17 tonnes, was commissioned for St Paul’s Cathedral in 1882.

Above the bell, and visible on dark evenings, is a light from a lantern that shows Parliament is sitting. Known as the Ayrton Light after the First Commissioner of Works, it reputedly allowed Queen Victoria to see from Buckingham Palace if her MPs were grafting away. Quite right too.