英语怎么介绍大本钟
㈠ 关于大本钟的简介要英语的带翻译10个词左右
英国伦敦著名古钟或称大笨钟，即威斯敏斯特宫报时钟英国国会会议厅附属的钟楼，建于1859年。安装在西敏寺桥北议会大厦东侧高95米的钟楼上，钟楼四面的圆形钟盘，直径为6.7米，是伦敦的传统地标。
钟重13.5吨，钟盘直径6.7米，时针和分针长度分别为2.75米和4.27米，钟摆重305公斤。作为伦敦市的标志以及英国的象征，大本钟巨大而华丽，重13.5吨，四个钟面的面积有两平方米左右。大本钟从1859年就为伦敦城报时，根据格林尼治时间每隔一小时敲响一次，至今将近一个半世纪。London, also known as a famous ancient bell Big Ben, the Palace of Westminster reported that the British Parliament clock tower attached to the Chamber was built in 1859. Installed on the east side of Westminster Bridge North parliament building 95 meters high bell tower, the bell tower surrounded by a circular disk with a diameter of 6.7 meters, is a traditional London landmarks.
Bell weighs 13.5 tons, 6.7 meters in diameter tray clock, hour and minute hands length of 2.75 meters and 4.27 meters, the penlum weight 305 kg. As a sign of the City of London and the UK a symbol of Big Ben and the great and magnificent, weighs 13.5 tons, four clock face area of two square meters. Big Ben in London from 1859 on the city of timekeeping, according to Greenwich Mean Time sounded once every hour and has nearly a century and a half 亲~~请自行剪裁喔~~
㈡ 用英文介绍Big Ben
People all over the world write to Big Ben. They even send birthday presents. One present was a bottle of oil， to help keep Big Ben running. Big Ben is not a person. It's a clock！
Big Ben is a great clock high up in a tower of the parliament (议会) building. This is the building in London where laws are made. The people of London like to see Big Ben's friendly faces. They like to hear the chimes (钟曲声) every 15 minutes. They like to hear the big bell striking on the hour. BONG！ BONG！ BONG！
Radio sends the sound of the big clock to the rest of the world. The BBC began to broadcast the chimes in 1924. Ever since， Big Ben has been a radio star.
Big Ben's story started in 1834. In that year the old Parliament building burned down. Its clock tower crashed to the ground. There had to be a new building-and a new clock.
Plans were made. They called for a "King of Clocks， the biggest and best in the world". So the clock had to be big. And it had to keep very good time.
The big clock was made in two years. Five more years went by before the clock tower was finished， then the four bells for the chimes were brought into the tower. And at last the giant (巨大的) hour bell was put in place. It rang out for the first time on July 11， 1859.
This great bell had to have a name. A meeting of Parliament was called to pick one. The talk about names went on and on. Then Benjamin Hall got up to speak. He was a big man that the others liked. By this time they were all tired. Someone shouted， "Why not call it Big Ben？"
Everybody laughed， and the meeting broke up. The name Big Ben came from then on.
㈢ 大本钟用英语怎么介绍(5句以内)
The famous old clock or Big Ben clock in London, England, is the clock tower attached to the parliament Hall of Westminster Palace. It was built in 1859. It is installed on the 95m high bell tower on the east side of the North parliament building of Westminster Bridge. The circular clock plate around the bell tower, with a diameter of 6.7m, is a traditional landmark of London.（望采纳）
㈣ 英文介绍大笨钟
Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north-eastern end of the Palace of Westminster in London.[1] The nickname is often also used to refer to the clock and the clock tower.[2] This is the world's largest four-faced, chiming clock and the third largest free-standing clock tower in the world.[3] It celebrates its 150th birthday in 2009,[4] ring which celebratory events are planned.[5]
The nearest London Underground station is Westminster.
Contents [hide]
1 Tower
2 Clock
2.1 Faces
2.2 Mechanism
2.3 Malfunctions and breakdowns
3 Bells
3.1 Great Bell
3.2 Chimes
4 Nickname
5 Significance in popular culture
6 Awards
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Tower
The Palace of Westminster, the Clock Tower and Westminster BridgeThe tower was raised as a part of Charles Barry's design for a new palace, after the old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire on the night of 22 October 1834.
The new Parliament was built in a Neo-gothic style. Although Barry was the chief architect of the Palace, he turned to Augustus Pugin for the design of the clock tower, which resembles earlier Pugin designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall. The design for the Clock Tower was Pugin's last design before his final descent into madness and death, and Pugin himself wrote, at the time of Barry's last visit to him to collect the drawings: "I never worked so hard in my life for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all the designs for finishing his bell tower & it is beautiful."[6] The tower is designed in Pugin's celebrated Gothic Revival style, and is 96.3 metres (315.9 ft) high.
The bottom 61 metres (200 ft) of the Clock Tower's structure consists of brickwork with sand coloured Anston limestone cladding. The remainder of the tower's height is a framed spire of cast iron. The tower is founded on a 15-metre (49 ft) square raft, made of 3-metre (9.8 ft) thick concrete, at a depth of 4 metres (13 ft) below ground level. The four clock faces are 55 metres (180 ft) above ground. The interior volume of the tower is 4,650 cubic metres (164,200 cubic feet).
Because of changes in ground conditions since construction (notably tunnelling for the Jubilee Line extension), the tower leans slightly to the north-west, by roughly 220 millimetres (8.66 in) at the clock face, giving an inclination of approximately 1/250.[7][8] Due to thermal effects it oscillates annually by a few millimetres east and west.
Clock
Faces
The clock faces are large enough to have once allowed the Clock Tower to be the largest four-faced clock in the world, but have since been outdone by the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. However, the builders of the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower did not add chimes to the clock, so the Great Clock of Westminster still holds the title of the "world's largest four-faced chiming clock".
The face of the Great Clock of Westminster. The hour hand is 2.7 metres (9 ft) long and the minute hand is 4.3 metres (14 ft) long.The clock and dials were designed by Augustus Pugin. The clock faces are set in an iron frame 7 metres (23 ft) in diameter, supporting 312 pieces of opal glass, rather like a stained-glass window. Some of the glass pieces may be removed for inspection of the hands. The surround of the dials is gilded. At the base of each clock face in gilt letters is the Latin inscription DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM, which means O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First.
Mechanism
The Clock Tower at sk, with The London Eye in the backgroundThe clock is famous for its reliability. The designers were the lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison, and George Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Construction was entrusted to clockmaker Edward John Dent, who completed the work in 1854. As the Tower was not complete until 1859, Denison had time to experiment: Instead of using the deadbeat escapement and remontoire as originally designed, Denison invented the double three-legged gravity escapement. This escapement provides the best separation between penlum and clock mechanism. The penlum is installed within an enclosed windproof box sunk beneath the clockroom. It is 3.9m long, weighs 300 kg and beats every 2 seconds. The clockwork mechanism in a room below weighs 5 tons.
The idiom of putting a penny on, with the meaning of slowing down, sprang from the method of fine-tuning the clock's penlum.[9] On top of the penlum is a small stack of old penny coins; these are to adjust the time of the clock. Adding or subtracting coins has the effect of minutely altering the position of the penlum's centre of mass, the effective length of the penlum rod and hence the rate at which the penlum swings. Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.4 second per day.
During The Blitz, the Palace of Westminster was hit by German bombing, on 10 May 1941, a bombing raid damaged two of the clockfaces and sections of the tower's stepped roof and destroyed the House of Commons chamber. Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed a new five-floor block. Two floors are occupied by the current chamber which was used for the first time on 26 October 1950. Despite the heavy bombing the clock ran accurately and chimed throughout the Blitz.
Malfunctions and breakdowns
New Year's Eve 1962: The clock slowed e to heavy snow and ice on the long hands, causing the penlum to detach from the clockwork, as it is designed to do in such circumstances, to avoid serious damage elsewhere in the mechanism—the penlum continuing to swing freely. Thus it chimed in the new year 10 minutes late.[citation needed]
5 August 1976: First and only major breakdown. The speed regulator of the chiming mechanism finally broke after 100+ years of torsional fatigue, then the fully-wound 4 ton weights mped their entire potential energy into the chiming mechanism in one go. It caused a great deal of damage; the Great Clock was shut down for a total of 26 days over nine months - it was reactivated on 9 May 1977; this was its longest break in operation since it was built. During this time BBC Radio 4 had to make do with the pips.[10]
Friday, 27 May 2005: the clock stopped at 10:07 pm local time, possibly e to hot weather (temperatures in London had reached an unseasonal 31.8 °C (90 °F)). It restarted, but stopped again at 10:20 pm local time and remained still for about 90 minutes before restarting.[11]
29 October 2005: the mechanism was stopped for about 33 hours so the clock and its chimes could be worked on. It was the lengthiest maintenance shutdown in 22 years.[12]
The south clock face being cleaned on 11 August 20077:00 am 5 June 2006: The clock tower's "Quarter Bells" were taken out of commission for four weeks [13] as a bearing holding one of the quarter bells was damaged from years of wear and needed to be removed for repairs. During this period, BBC Radio 4 broadcast recordings of British bird song followed by the pips in place of the usual chimes.[14]
11 August 2007: Start of 6-week stoppage for maintenance. Bearings in the clock's drive train and the "great bell" striker were replaced, for the first time since installation.[15] During the maintenance works, the clock was not driven by the original mechanism, but by an electric motor.[16] Once again, BBC Radio 4 had to make do with the pips ring this time.
Bells
Great Bell
The main bell, officially known as the Great Bell, is the largest bell in the tower and part of the Great Clock of Westminster. The bell is better known by the nickname Big Ben.[17]
The original bell was a 16.3-tonne (16 ton) hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons.[1] The bell was never officially named, but the legend on it records that the commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall, was responsible for the order. Another theory for the origin of the name is that the bell may have been named after a contemporary heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt. It is thought that the bell was originally to be called Victoria or Royal Victoria in honour of Queen Victoria,[18] but that an MP suggested the nickname ring a Parliamentary debate; the comment is not recorded in Hansard.
Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard. Cast in 1856, the first bell was transported to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen horses, with crowds cheering its progress. Unfortunately, it cracked beyond repair while being tested and a replacement had to be made. The bell was recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13.76-tonne (13½ ton) bell.[19] This was pulled 200ft up to the Clock Tower’s belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. It is 2.2 metres tall and 2.9 metres wide. This new bell first chimed in July 1859. In September it too cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into service. According to the foundry's manager, George Mears, Denison had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified.[1] For three years Big Ben was taken out of commission and the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells until it was reinstalled. To make the repair, a square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack, and the bell given an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place.[1] Big Ben has chimed with an odd twang ever since and is still in use today complete with the crack. At the time of its casting, Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until "Great Paul", a 17 tonne (16¾ ton) bell currently hung in St. Paul's Cathedral, was cast in 1881.[20]
Chimes
Click to hear BBC World Service announce itself, then play Westminster Chimes and the 12 strikes of Big Ben as broadcast at exactly 00:00:00 GMT on 1 January 2009.Along with the Great Bell, the belfry houses four quarter bells which play the Westminster Quarters on the quarter hours. The four quarter bells are G sharp, F sharp, E, and B (see Note). They were cast by John Warner & Sons at their Crescent Foundry in 1857 (G sharp, F sharp and B) and 1858 (E). The Foundry was in Jewin Crescent, in what is now known as The Barbican, in the City of London.
The Quarter Bells play a 20-chime sequence, 1–4 at quarter past, 5–12 at half past, 13–20 and 1–4 at quarter to, and 5–20 on the hour (which sounds 25 seconds before the main bell tolls the hour). Because the low bell (B) is struck twice in quick succession, there is not enough time to pull a hammer back, and it is supplied with two wrench hammers on opposite sides of the bell. The tune is that of the Cambridge Chimes, first used for the chimes of Great St Mary's church, Cambridge, and supposedly a variation, attributed to William Crotch, on a phrase from Handel's Messiah. The notional words of the chime, again derived from Great St Mary's and in turn an allusion to Psalm 37, are: "All through this hour/Lord be my guide/And by Thy power/No foot shall slide". They are written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room.[21][22]
On-the-hour chimes
Size: 88 KB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
Nickname
The nickname Big Ben is the subject of some debate. The nickname was applied first to the Great Bell; it may have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw the installation of the Great Bell, or after boxing's English Heavyweight Champion Benjamin Caunt.[1][17][23][24] Now Big Ben is used to refer to the clock, the tower and the bell collectively, although the nickname is not universally accepted as referring to the clock and tower.[2][25][26][27] Some authors of works about the tower, clock and bell sidestep the issue by using the words Big Ben first in the title, then going on to clarify that the subject of the book is the clock and tower as well as the bell.[28][29]
Significance in popular culture
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 quickly convey to a non-UK audience a generic location in Britain, a popular way to do so is to show an image of the Clock Tower, often with a Routemaster bus or Hackney carriage in the foreground.[30] This gambit is less often used in the United Kingdom, as it would suggest to most British people a specific location in London, which may not be the intention. The Clock Tower is often polled as the Most Iconic London Film Location.[31]
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.
The Clock Tower ring the 2008/2009 New Years Eve Celebrations.The Clock Tower 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 year. 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.
ITN's News at Ten opening sequence features an image of the Clock Tower with the sound of Big Ben's chimes punctuating the announcement of the news headlines, and has done so on and off for the last 41 years. The Big Ben chimes continue to be used ring the headlines and all ITV News bulletins use a graphic based on the Westminster clock face. 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.
Londoners who live an appropriate distance from the Clock Tower and Big Ben can, by means of listening to the chimes both live and on the radio or television, hear the bell strike thirteen times on New Year's Eve. This is possible e to what amounts to a offset between live and electronically transmitted chimes since the speed of sound is a lot slower than the speed of radio waves. Guests are invited to count the chimes aloud as the radio is graally turned down.
The Clock 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 face. 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". An animated version of the clock and its inner workings were also used as the setting for the climactic final battle between Basil of Baker Street and his nemesis Ratigan in the Walt Disney animated film The Great Mouse Detective, and is shown being destroyed by a UFO in the film Mars Attacks!.
Awards
It was announced on 9 April 2008 that a survey of 2,000 people found that the tower was the most popular landmark in the United Kingdom.[32]
㈤ 大本钟的英文简介
http://www.google.cn/search?client=aff-9991&channel=link&affdom=9991.com&hs=VCZ&hl=zh-CN&q=the+big+ben&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=lr%3Dlang_en
THE STORY OF BIG BEN
At 9'-0" diameter, 7'-6" high, and weighing in at 13 tons 10 cwts 3 qtrs 15lbs (13,760 Kg), the hour bell of the Great Clock of Westminster - known worldwide as 'Big Ben' - is the most famous bell ever cast at Whitechapel. This picture, painted by William T. Kimber, the head moulder responsible for casting the bell, shows George Mears with his wife and daughter inspecting the casting prior to despatch. Big Ben was cast on Saturday 10th April 1858, but its story begins more than two decades earlier....
On 16th October 1834, fire succeeded where Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters had failed on 5th November 1605, and destroyed the Palace of Westminster, long the seat of the British government. Those few bits of the Old Palace that survived the fire - most notably Westminster Hall, which was built between 1097 and 1099 by William Rufus - were incorporated into the new buildings we know today, along with many new features.
In 1844, Parliament decided that the new buildings for the Houses of Parliament, by then under construction, should incorporate a tower and clock. The commission for this work was awarded to the architect Charles Barry, who initially invited just one clockmaker to proce a design and quotation. The rest of the trade objected to this, demanding the job be put out to competitive tender. The Astronomer Royal, George Airy was appointed to draft a specification for the clock. One of his requirements was that:
"the first stroke of the hour bell should register the time, correct to within one second per day, and furthermore that it should telegraph its performance twice a day to Greenwich Observatory, where a record would be kept."
Most clockmakers of the day considered such accuracy unnattainable for a large tower clock driving striking mechanisms and heavy hands exposed to wind and weather and lobbied for a lesser specification. However, Airy was adamant that the first specification be adhered to. Due to this impasse, Parliament appointed barrister Edmund Beckett Denison as co-referee with Airy. Edmund Beckett Denison, later Sir Edmund Beckett, the first Baron Grimthorpe, was a difficult man. He was described by one writer as:
"zealous but unpopular, self-accredited expert on clocks, locks, bells, buildings, as well as many branches of law, Denison was one of those people who are almost impossible as colleagues, being perfectly convinced that they know more than anybody about everything - as unhappily they often do."
Denison decided to apply himself to the problem of the clock. It was 1851 before he came up with a design which could meet the exacting specification. The clock Denison designed was built by Messrs E.J. Dent & Co., and completed in 1854. The tower was not ready until 1859, so the clock was kept on test at Dent's works for over five years. (During that time, Denison invented a new gravity escapement and a trial clock was tested and approved by the Astronomer Royal. This clock is believed to be now in use as the church clock at St. Dunstan's, at Cranbrook in Kent.)
Next came the bells, and Denison discovered that Barry, now Sir Charles Barry, had specified a 14 ton hour bell but had made no provision for its proction or for that of the four smaller quarter chime bells. Denison's studies of clocks had included bells and he had developed his own ideas as to how they should be designed and made.
The largest bell ever cast in Britain up to that time had been 'Great Peter' at York Minster. This weighed just 10¾ tons, so it is not surprising the bellfounders were wary of bidding for the contract to proce the new bell, particularly since Denison insisted on his own design for the shape of the bell as well as his own recipe for the bellmetal. In both respects his requirements varied significantly from traditional custom and practice. Eventually, a bell was made to his specification, albeit somewhat oversize at 16 tons, by John Warner & Sons at Stockton-on-Tees on 6th August 1856, but this cracked irreparably while under test in the Palace Yard at Westminster. It was then that Denison, who now had QC after his name, turned to the Whitechapel foundry....
George Mears, then the master bellfounder and owner of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, undertook the casting. According to foundry records, Mears originally quoted a price of £2401 for casting the bell, but this was offset to the sum of £1829 by the metal he was able to reclaim from the first bell so that the actual invoice tendered, on 28th May 1858, was in the sum of £572. It took a week To break up the old bell, three furnaces were required to melt the metal, and the mould was heated all day before the actual casting, the first time this had been done in British bell-founding. It took 20 minutes to fill the mould with molten metal, and 20 days for the metal to solidify and cool. After the bell had been tested in every way by Mears, Denison approved it before it left the foundry.
Transporting the bell the few miles from the foundry to the Houses of Parliament was a major event. Traffic stopped as the bell, mounted on a trolley drawn by sixteen brightly beribboned horses, made its way over London Bridge, along Borough Road, and over Westminster Bridge. The streets had been decorated for the occasion and enthusiastic crowds cheered the bell along the route.
The bells of the Great Clock of Westmister rang across London for the first time on 31st May 1859, and Parliament had a special sitting to decide on a suitable name for the great hour bell. During the course of the debate, and amid the many suggestions that were made, Chief Lord of the Woods and Forests, Sir Benjamin Hall, a large and ponderous man known affectionately in the House as "Big Ben", rose and gave an impressively long speech on the subject. When, at the end of this oratorical marathon, Sir Benjamin sank back into his seat, a wag in the chamber shouted out: "Why not call him Big Ben and have done with it?" The house erupted in laughter; Big Ben had been named. This, at least, is the most commonly accepted story. However, according to the booklet written for the old Ministry of Works by Alan Phillips:
"Like other nice stories, this has no documentary support; Hansard failed to record the interjection. The Times had been alluding to 'Big Ben of Westminster' since 1856. Probably, the derivation must be sought more remotely. The current champion of the prize ring was Benjamin Caunt, who had fought terrific battles with Bendigo, and who in 1857 lasted sixty rounds of a drawn contest in his final appearance at the age of 42. As Caunt at one period scaled 17 stone (238 lbs, or 108 kilogrammes), his nickname was Big Ben, and that was readily bestowed by the populace on any object the heaviest of its class. So the anonymous MP may have snatched at what was already a catchphrase."
In September, a mere two months after it officially went into service, Big Ben cracked. Once again Denison's belief that he knew more about bells than the experts was to blame for he had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified by George Mears. Big Ben was taken out of service and for the next three years the hours were struck on the largest of the quarter-bells. Eventually, a lighter hammer was fitted, a square piece of metal chipped out of the soundbow, and the bell given an eighth of a turn to present an undamaged section to the hammer. This is the bell as we hear it today, the crack giving it its distinctive but less-than-perfect tone.
Not prepared to admit any error on his part, Denison befriended one of the Foundry's moulders, plied him with drink, and got him to bear false witness that it was poor casting, disguised with filler, that had caused the cracking. (A close examination of Big Ben in 2002 failed to find a trace of filler, incidentally.) With reputations at stake this led to a court case, which Denison rightly lost. (With all the passion and intrigue involved, from the commissioning of Big Ben through to the court case, it's surprising these events have never been turned into a TV drama.) Nor was this the end of the story. Denison, obviously aggrieved at having lost the court case, continued to badmouth the Foundry. Twenty years later he was unwise enough to do so in print and this led to a second libel trial. And he lost that case, too.
In mid-2002, we uncovered a sty old boxfile bearing a label that read "Stainbank v Beckett 1881". It contained a complete transcript of the second trial between the Foundry - this time in the person of founder Robert Stainbank - and Sir Edmund Beckett Denison. Initially, we thought we'd discovered a transcript of the original, Big Ben trial. While it's a shame we don't possess a transcript of the first trial (at least, none we've yet found) there is apparently a still extant at the Palace of Westminster. This may, however, be the only existing transcript of the later trial. That original, handwritten transcript will be lodged in the Foundry library after a typed record has been made.
One final point of interest is that the transcript mentions the lawyer for the Foundry using a small model to demonstrate the principles of bell-casting. This would almost certainly have been the same small, exquisitely crafted model currently on display in the Foundry's lobby museum area.
Big Ben remains the largest bell ever cast at Whitechapel. Visitors to the foundry pass through a full size profile of the bell that frames the main entrance as they enter the building. The original moulding gauge employed to form the mould used to cast Big Ben hangs on the end wall of the foundry above the furnaces to this very day.
Among the gift items available from Whitechapel Bell Foundry are a finely detailed miniature of the bell itself and an illustrated booklet about Big Ben. These can both be found on our merchandising page.
㈥ 求大本钟英文介绍
ig Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London[1] and is usually extended to refer to both the clock and the clock tower.[2][3] The official name of the tower in which Big Ben is located was originally the Clock Tower, but it was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
The tower was designed by Augustus Pugin in a neo-gothic style. When completed in 1859, its clock was the largest and most accurate four-faced striking and chiming clock in the world.[4] The tower stands 315 feet (96 m) tall, and the climb from ground level to the belfry is 334 steps. Its base is square, measuring 39 feet (12 m) on each side. Dials of the clock are 23 feet (7.0 m) in diameter. On 31 May 2009, celebrations were held to mark the tower's 150th anniversary.[5]
Big Ben is the largest of five bells and weighs 13.54 long tons (13.8 tonnes; 15.2 short tons).[1] It was the largest bell in the United Kingdom for 23 years. The origin of the bell's nickname is open to question; it may be named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw its installation, or heavyweight boxing champion Benjamin Caunt. Four quarter bells chime at 15, 30 and 45 minutes past the hour and just before Big Ben tolls on the hour. The clock uses its original Victorian mechanism, but an electric motor can be used as a backup.
The tower is a British cultural icon recognised all over the world. It is one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and parliamentary democracy,[6] and it is often used in the establishing shot of films set in London.[7] The clock tower has been part of a Grade I listed building since 1970 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
On 21 August 2017, a four-year schele of renovation works began on the tower, which are to include the addition of a lift. There are also plans to re-glaze and repaint the clock dials. With a few exceptions, such as New Year's Eve and Remembrance Sunday, the bells are to be silent until the work has been completed in the 2020s.
㈦ 大笨钟介绍 英文版
THE STORY OF BIG BEN
（没有中文翻译，反正也不是难的句子，看一下就能懂的）
At 9'-0" diameter, 7'-6" high, and weighing in at 13 tons 10 cwts 3 qtrs 15lbs (13,760 Kg), the hour bell of the Great Clock of Westminster - known worldwide as 'Big Ben' - is the most famous bell ever cast at Whitechapel. This picture, painted by William T. Kimber, the head moulder responsible for casting the bell, shows George Mears with his wife and daughter inspecting the casting prior to despatch. Big Ben was cast on Saturday 10th April 1858, but its story begins more than two decades earlier....
On 16th October 1834, fire succeeded where Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters had failed on 5th November 1605, and destroyed the Palace of Westminster, long the seat of the British government. Those few bits of the Old Palace that survived the fire - most notably Westminster Hall, which was built between 1097 and 1099 by William Rufus - were incorporated into the new buildings we know today, along with many new features.
Big Ben remains the largest bell ever cast at Whitechapel. Visitors to the foundry pass through a full size profile of the bell that frames the main entrance as they enter the building. The original moulding gauge employed to form the mould used to cast Big Ben hangs on the end wall of the foundry above the furnaces to this very day.
Among the gift items available from Whitechapel Bell Foundry are a finely detailed miniature of the bell itself and an illustrated booklet about Big Ben. These can both be found on our merchandising page.
以下是中文介绍（和上面英语内容不一样，仅供常识参考）
大本钟
大本钟（Big Ben，坐标：51°30′02.2〃N, 00°07′28.6〃W），或称大笨钟，即威斯敏斯特宫(Palace of Westminster)钟塔，英国国会会议厅附属的钟楼 (Clock Tower) 的大报时钟的昵称。位于威斯敏斯特桥的南面桥头，与英国议会大厦相连，英国议会大厦的北角，钟楼高79米，钟楼四面的圆形钟盘，直径为6.7米，是伦敦的传统地标。坐地铁可以在威斯敏斯特桥站下车。作为伦敦市的标志以及英国的象征，大本钟巨大而华丽，重13.5吨，四个钟面的面积有两平方米左右。大本钟从1859年就为伦敦城报时，根据格林尼治时间每隔一小时敲响一次，至今将近一个半世纪，尽管这期间大本钟曾两度裂开而重铸。现在大本钟的钟声仍然清晰、动听。
概述
1859年，大钟由当时的英王工务大臣本杰明·霍尔爵士监制，铸造时耗资2.7万英镑。“大本”钟被视为伦敦的象征，凡到伦敦观光的人，无不想到钟楼周围，站在议会桥上欣赏伦敦这个独具一格的建筑。1834年整个西敏被大火所毁，目前的这座97米高的钟楼是1837年维多利亚女王登基时建造的。大钟造于1856年，以建造工程的第一名监督官本杰明爵士的名字命名，叫"BIG BEN"(大本钟)。1857年该钟出现裂痕，于1859年重新铸造。。
大本钟的确有些笨重.钟盘的直径为7米,有四个钟面,时针和分针的长度分别为2.75米和4.27米,钟摆重305公斤,大钟总重量为13.5吨.
英国议会大厦原来并没有镶嵌大本钟,1834年,因有人在议会大厦炉子里大量焚烧政府文件而引起火灾,把大厦夷为平地.1840年议会大厦开始重建,大本钟1859年建于议会大厦主体的东北角,由当时的工务大臣本杰明·霍尔爵士监制,耗资2.7万英镑,为了纪念他的功绩,取名为大本钟,本是本杰明的昵称.
根据格林尼治时间,大本钟每隔一个小时报时一次,报时声深沉浑厚,方圆数英里之外都能听到其钟声的回响.大本钟装有麦克风,与英国广播公司(BBC)相连,因此每当大钟报时,人们都能从BBC的广播中听到其铿锵有力的声音.
这个钟铸造好以后，给它取什么名字的问题难倒了英国君臣，有一个大臣悄悄地说“就叫‘大本’算了。”——原来铸钟大臣姓“本”，后来大家都把这口钟叫“大本”了，也就是“大笨”了。
“大本钟”于2005年5月27日晚突然停走了1个多小时。技术人员现在还不明白这座有着147年历史的大钟为何“罢工”？ 英国议会大厦一名工程师28日说，位于议会大厦东侧高95米的钟楼上的大本钟在当地时间27日晚10时07分出现了故障，其分针停止转动。接着，分针开始缓慢转动，在10时20分又停了一次。这一 停就是1个半小时，此后才恢复了正常。
一些人猜测说，可能是炎热的天气造成了这一问题。28日伦敦的最高气温达到了31．8摄氏度。气象部门说，这是自1953年以来英格兰地区5月份中最炎热的一天。但那名议会大厦工程师认为，这一说法缺乏依据。“我们得知有一点小故障，但接着它就再次开始运转，”他说。
大本钟一向以其准时而闻名。二战中纳粹德国对伦敦的狂轰滥炸也未能将它摧毁。不过，毕竟是有着一百多岁的“高龄”，它也出过一些小问题。例如1962年元旦，一场大雪就让它的零点钟声比正常时间晚了10分钟。
㈧ 大本钟的英文资料（要带翻译的！！！！！！）
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 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The Elizabeth Tower holds the largest four-facedchiming 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] ring which celebratory events took place.[5][6] The Elizabeth 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.
大本钟（英语：Big Ben，或翻译成大笨钟、大鹏钟）是英国国会会议厅附属钟楼的大报时钟的昵称，也常代指该钟所在的钟楼 。[1]
大本钟坐落在英国伦敦泰晤士河畔的威斯敏斯特宫钟塔上，是伦敦的标志之一。钟楼高95米，钟直径9英尺，重13.5吨。每15分钟响一次，敲响威斯敏斯特钟声。自从兴建地铁朱比利线之后，大本钟受到影响，最近测量显示大本钟朝西北方向倾斜约半米[2]。
大本钟的命名来源众说纷纭，有一种说法称大本钟的名字来自于本杰明·豪尔爵士。
大钟于1858年4月10日建成，是英国最大的钟。塔起码有320英尺高（约合97.5米），分针有14英尺长（约合4.27米），大本钟用人工发条，国会开会期间，钟面会发出光芒，每隔一小时报时一次。每年的夏季与冬天时间转换时会把钟停止，进行零件的修补、交换，钟的调音等。
大本钟的可靠性毋庸置疑，自从建成，伦敦格林威治天文台的官员每天两次派人校对此钟。不过有一次它把时间报错了，因为一名在大本钟上作业的油漆粉刷工在钟面上挂了一个油漆桶，把钟弄慢了。
2009年6月1日，欢庆启用150周年。2012年6月26日，英国政府宣布为庆祝伊丽莎白二世登基60周年，将大本钟所在的钟楼正式改名为伊丽莎白塔。
㈨ 关于英国大本钟的英文介绍！
大本钟(Big Ben)
Big Ben is one of London's best-known landmarks, and looks most spectacular at night when the clock faces are illuminated. You even know when parliament is in session, because a light shines above the clock face.
The four dials of the clock are 23 feet square, the minute hand is 14 feet long and the figures are 2 feet high. Minutely regulated with a stack of coins placed on the huge penlum, Big Ben is an excellent timekeeper, which has rarely stopped.
The name Big Ben actually refers not to the clock-tower itself, but to the thirteen ton bell hung within. The bell was named after the first commissioner of works, Sir Benjamin Hall.
This bell came originally from the old Palace of Westminster, it was given to the Dean of St. Paul's by William III. Before returning to Westminster to hang in its present home, it was refashioned in Whitechapel in 1858. The BBC first broadcast the chimes on the 31st December 1923 - there is a microphone in the turret connected to Broadcasting House.
During the second world war in 1941, an incendiary bomb destroyed the Commons chamber of the Houses of Parliament, but the clock tower remained intact and Big Ben continued to keep time and strike away the hours, its unique sound was broadcast to the nation and around the world, a welcome reassurance of hope to all who heard it.
There are even cells within the clock tower where Members of Parliament can be imprisoned for a breach of parliamentary privilege, though this is rare; the last recorded case was in 1880.
The tower is not open to the general public, but those with a "special interest" may arrange a visit to the top of the Clock Tower through their local (UK) MP.
大本钟(Big Ben)是英国最著名的地标, 与英国国会大厦相连. 大本钟因其走时准确而名扬四海。每隔一小时，大钟根据格林威治时间发出沉重而铿锵的响声, 在数英里之外也能听到钟声的回荡.
Great bell (Big Ben) is the United Kingdom's most famous landmark, linked with the British parliament building. Great bell because, she was walking and accurate. Every Clock, bell Jiatelinwei Time issued under heavy sonorous sounds, a few miles away can hear the bell reverberate.