Buckingham Palace is the official London residence and principal workplace of the
British monarch.
[1] Located in the
City of Westminster, the
palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a focus for the
British people at times of national rejoicing and crisis.
Originally known as
Buckingham House, the building which forms the core of today's palace was a large
townhousebuilt for the
Duke of Buckingham in 1705 on a site which had been in private ownership for at least 150 years. It was subsequently acquired by
George III in 1761
[2] as a private residence for
Queen Charlotte, and known as "The Queen's House". During the 19th century it was enlarged, principally by architects
John Nash and Edward Blore, forming three wings around a central courtyard. Buckingham Palace finally became the official royal palace of the British monarch on the accession of
Queen Victoria in 1837. The last major structural additions were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the East front, which contains the well-known balcony on which the royal family traditionally congregates to greet crowds outside. However, the palace chapel was destroyed by a German bomb in World War II; the
Queen's Gallery was built on the site and opened to the public in 1962 to exhibit works of art from the
Royal Collection.
The state rooms, used for official and state entertaining, are open to the public each year for most of August and September, as part of the Palace's Summer Opening.
In front of
us you can see the Houses of Parliament
and Big Ben. The Houses of
Parliament is the seat of the British government. Big Ben is one of the most
famous clocks in the world. Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London,[1] and often extended to refer to the clock and the clock tower.[2] The tower is now officially called the Elizabeth Tower, after being renamed in 2012 (from "Clock Tower") to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The tower holds the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world and is the third-tallest free-standing clock tower.[3] The tower was completed in 1858 and had its 150th anniversary on 31 May 2009,[4] during which celebratory events took place.[5][6] The tower has become one of the most prominent symbols of both London and England and is often in the establishing shot of films set in the city.
The clock has become a symbol of the United Kingdom and London, particularly in the visual media. When a television or film-maker wishes to indicate a generic location in Britain, a popular way to do so is to show an image of the tower, often with a
red double-decker bus or
black cab in the foreground.
[47]
The sound of the clock chiming has also been used this way in audio media, but as the
Westminster Quarters are heard from other clocks and other devices, the unique nature of this sound has been considerably diluted. Big Ben is a focus of
New Year celebrations in the United Kingdom, with radio and TV stations tuning to its chimes to welcome the start of the New Year. As well, to welcome in 2012, the clock tower itself was lit with fireworks that exploded at every toll of Big Ben.
[48] Similarly, on
Remembrance Day, the chimes of Big Ben are broadcast to mark the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and the start of two minutes' silence.
[49] Londoners who live an appropriate distance from the tower and Big Ben can, by means of listening to the chimes both live and on analogue radio, hear the bell strike thirteen times. This is possible due to what amounts to an offset between live and electronically transmitted chimes since the
speed of sound is a lot slower than the speed of radio waves.
[50]Guests are invited to count the chimes aloud as the radio is gradually turned down.
ITN's
News at Ten opening sequence formerly featured an image of the tower with the sound of Big Ben's chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines.
[51] The Big Ben chimes (known within ITN as "The Bongs") continue to be used during the headlines and all
ITV News bulletins use a graphic based on the Westminster clock dial. Big Ben can also be heard striking the hour before some news bulletins on
BBC Radio 4 (6 pm and midnight, plus 10 pm on Sundays) and the
BBC World Service, a practice that began on 31 December 1923. The sound of the chimes are sent in real time from a microphone permanently installed in the tower and connected by line to
Broadcasting House.
[citation needed]
The tower has appeared in many films, most notably in the 1978 version of
The Thirty Nine Steps, in which the hero,
Richard Hannay, attempted to halt the clock's progress (to prevent a linked bomb detonating) by hanging from the minute hand of its western dial.
[52] In the fourth
James Bond film,
Thunderball, a mistaken extra strike of Big Ben on the hour is designated by criminal organisation
SPECTRE to be the signal that the British Government has acceded to its nuclear extortion demands. It was also used in the filming of
Shanghai Knights starring
Jackie Chan and
Owen Wilson, and was depicted as being partially destroyed in the
Doctor Who episode "
Aliens of London". Big Ben was also featured in the closing scene of
James McTeigue's film
V for Vendetta in which a futuristic depiction of
Guy Fawkes succeeds in blowing up parliament, and the tower's bells and pendulum are sounded with a final screech at the beginning of the explosion. The apparent "thirteen chimes" detailed above was also a major plot device in the
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode, "
Big Ben Strikes Again". It has featured prominently in several animated
Walt Disney films, including
The Great Mouse Detective,
Peter Pan and
Cars 2.
At the close of the polls for the
2010 General Election the results of the national exit poll were projected onto the south side of the tower.
[53]
On 27 July 2012, starting at 8:12 a.m, Big Ben chimed 30 times, to welcome in the
London Olympic Games (i.e. the 30th Olympiad), which officially began that day.
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