Silence is just the latest setback in the chequered story of Big Ben

Big Ben is set to fall silent for four years to allow for repairs to the Elizabeth Tower, a rare interruption in more than a century and a half. Since it first rang out in 1859 the clock has come to symbolise London and its resilience. Through good times and bad it has told the hours and the quarters. But this impression of monumental stability belies a history of setbacks, controversy and personal tragedy.

Strictly speaking, Big Ben is the bell itself, named after Benjamin Hall. Hall was Commissioner of Works in 1856 when the first 15-ton bell, pitched in E natural, was cast. Visitors flocked to see it exhibited at the foot of the tower where it was rung regularly to entertain them.

Enthusiasm, however, turned to disappointment 11 months later when it suddenly cracked. Edmund Denison, who designed the clock, commissioned a new bell with the sensible provision that it was not to be paid for “until it has been tried by ringing with seven-hundredweight clapper”.

Big Ben mark two was hauled across Westminster Bridge in 1858 past cheering crowds and had to be winched sideways up the tower. London held its breath for the day and night, during which eight men working in shifts by gaslight successfully hoisted the bell.

From the ground the clock tower had assumed its finished appearance but there was a ghost in the machine. Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Palace of Westminster, had been assisted ever since he entered the competition for the job, by A W N Pugin. He designed the interiors of the House of Lords, the royal throne, the tiles, the panelling, the wallpaper, furniture and glass. He understood the Gothic style of the palace as Barry, a classicist, did not.

When the House of Commons was opened in 1852 the clock tower was still unfinished and the design not settled, but by now Pugin was desperately ill. Barry knew time was short and so just days after Queen Victoria knighted him, he visited Pugin and stood over him while he made drawings for the upper part of the tower and the clock face. They were the last he ever made. Seven months later, aged 40, he was dead.

Years afterwards, as the tower was finished and the clock faces built, it was found that the minute hand, as Pugin had drawn it, was too heavy to keep time, so it was modified.

Today the contrast between the Gothic hour hands and the plain minute hands is a poignant reminder of a life cut short — and the fact that Pugin’s most famous design was also his last.

Rosemary Hill is the author of God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain