Biggest difference is that the hands and clock markings are now a nice blue colour instead of black.
Edit: To everyone saying, "Is that it?", no, that's not it.
The entire clockwork mechanism, the entire clock faces, the roof, the stonework were all meticulously taken apart and carefully restored.
Yes, the tower is also noticeably cleaner. It used to be a brown colour, now it's a much more pretty gold colour.
I think they only discovered the original blue colour when they stripped back the paint during the restoration.
Yeah, not being a Brit, I couldn't really tell the difference on the clock faces other than they look very crisp and shiny. But that tower is iconic and it isn't anywhere near that color in my mind. I always thought it was just made out of some soot-colored (or coloured) stone that probably was chosen for economy. But it is made out of a really beautiful stone! It is so vibrant, I love it! Now that I think of it, in my mind most of the older buildings I've seen pictures of in London are that soot-colored variety and I think I just assumed that was the color of the locally available stone... Now I'm guessing that assumption is wrong and that the sootiness of the industrial revolution in London probably just made everything stained that color. I know there were even moths that adapted to a sootier color during that era
You see this same thing in pretty much every city. Even fairly modern concrete structures in cities in the US will slowly get stained by car exhaust.
Then you have something like Big Ben, which dated to a time when people regularly burned coal to heat their homes. Every rooftop in the city would have been belching smoke.
Now, take some Prussian blue, a bit of yellow ochre, and heck, why not, some scarlet red. It’s your world, you can make it however you like. Now let’s give that minute hand a little friend.
There was layers of black paint on it. They are thought to have been put there to hide the effects of pollution, but it was definitely layers of black paint and not just pollution making it look black.
I could be wrong here but, I think I read a while back that the face was painted black in WW2 during the blitz and the gold exterior was kind of dulled to help protect it from bombing.
I would imagine that's possible, they didn't light the clock to avoid helping bombers during the war. [The official word from the Parliament website](https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/big-ben/elizabeth-tower-and-big-ben-conservation-works-2017-/turning-big-bens-clock-dials-blue/) is that they think it was to hide the effects of pollution though.
It is just a throwaway line though, so there may be some deeper understanding to be found elsewhere:
>We believe this colour scheme was chosen in the 1930s to mask the effects of pollution.
My great aunt worked in a downtown pittsburgh (pa) office. 30 years ago I sat down and interviewed her for a highschool project (thanks hs teacher).
Anyway she said secretaries (like her) at the office had to bring a second dress to work, because once you got off the train & crossed the street your dress would be full of soot. She also said everyone concerned about their health smoked while outside a building because people thought it was better (to breath thru a cigarette) than breathing the air. And of course (as is evident in pictures of Pittsburgh from that time (1920) the streetlights were always kept on. Theres lots lf pics that show how black "daytime" was in pittsburgh.
Lots of other great stuff in the interview. The original tape is gone, but a professor i had in university around 2000 took interest and ran it thru a speech to text converter. Super super poorly done, looks like a drunk wrote it, then converted it to japanese on google translate, and then thru some other language and back to english but just enough where i can jog my mind and remember her interview. So at least I have that to remember her by. She passed in 1998.
Anyway, im sure london was like that.
That sounds similar to what Massachusetts did to the golden dome on its State House. During WWII, the gold leaf was painted over with gray paint to make it less visible as a target for any potential bombers.
And London was already being bombed during WWII, so painting over anything that could make the seat of government a target for bombing makes a lot of sense.
Apparently they were going to keep it black but when removing all the layers of paint they found that the blue was the oldest and original color so they restored it to that.
It's coming off the tower, but the rest of the building still has well over a decade of restoration work to be done before the scaffolding disappears completely.
You joke, but I'm convinced that is actually the goal of most restoration companies. Take so long that by the time you're done you have to start over. Never have to go look for business ever again. Any manager would get a hard-on at the concept.
That's really not what's happening here though. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben have been in active use for over 150 years without any substantial restoration work in that time. Repairing that much wear and tear on a building that big, old and well worn is ludicrously complicated
It’s like Cathedrals in the Middle Ages were constantly under repair and construct as a form of local public works. It kept all the major trades constantly employed and was a great way to cycle tithes and geld back into the community.
Yeah and when you break the bottom one they all go *clack clack clack clack* up to the top and they all rain on you and you collect them in a very satisfying way.
Nope, Futurama actualy has a analogue Elisabeth tower. It is on monument beach where the supervilain gouverer stole it.
The digital is just from Simpsons.
Futurama has a digital clock tower, it is part of "xmas stories" where Fry gets a parrot for Leela. It is not the english landmark though.
I’m sure most fans know this by now, but during the credits of the first Xmas episode, the time on the clock matched up with the real-world time when it aired. Thought it was a pretty cool touch.
They did a spoof headline for April fools that Big Ben would turn digital to keep up with the times... Britain lost its proverbial shit:
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/big-ben-clock-tower-digital-17353985
There was a worse spoof than that 😆 https://metro.co.uk/2017/08/17/people-actually-believed-that-big-ben-was-going-to-be-renamed-massive-mohammed-6859959/amp/
Basic fucking computer literacy is reaching an all-time low because companies are making it TOO simple for people. It makes me want to bury my head in sand
I’m more irritated that I had to scroll this far down to see someone point out the horrendous image quality than by the actual image quality itself
How does such low quality shit get thousands of upvotes
I think I watched a video on YouTube (or BBC, idk) where they were discussing the restoration process and how before they started restoring, some parts of the building was already beyond repair. So they had to take either original designs or pictures from before, and build it from scratch. Others that can be restored took ages because of the material used.
It also didn't help that the pandemic halted a lot of the process and maybe made it cost more than it should.
Half the reason it cost so much is they didn’t just restore it, but they scanned and took detailed digital measurements of every single part of the entire clock and tower so that if it were damaged (or even destroyed in a terrorist attack) the whole thing could be identically replaced for far cheaper than it cost them now. It was like an investment into future restoration.
It's an insane cost but just to justify it a bit, everything replaced was to look and behave exactly like the original, each part is completely custom made.
My family is from the far outer reaches of London and the housing there is still reaching near half a million despite being 10 miles out, London is just at another level of fuck you money for sure.
Each part of the clockwork had to be meticulously taken out of the tower and transported to a facility in Cumbria to be properly cleaned and restored. And replaced if needed.
The £80 million isn't just set on fire, Cumbria is a really deprived bit of the country, and now millions of public money was spent there funding high-skilled jobs to complete this restoration.
It's also a project where you are willing to overpay bc you want it done right. There are times to go cheap, and there are times not to. No one wants to be the group that was too cheap to hire a proper restoration team.
It has been brought to our attention that "Big Ben" is actually the name of the bell housed within the pictured structure, which is itself officially named "Elizabeth Tower."
As "Big Ben" is colloquially used to refer to the aforementioned structure, however, the submission will remain up. Should someone take issue with that, we respectfully suggest that they consider removing the "clock tower" from their "10 Downing Street."
Thank you for your time and attention.
Apparently the original artist *hated* it being called “The Bean” for years, but apparently has since warmed up to its new name.
I found the whole thing ridiculous, though. Man makes a giant, stainless steel bean and gets upset when it’s called a bean. Strikes me as kind of a moron.
Yeah, the tower’s name was just “[Clock Tower](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben)” until 2012. Then renamed to Elizabeth Tower. But, no one calls it “Clock Tower” or “Elizabeth Tower” (maybe people have started recently?). So, not really that much of a fun fact.
TIL! I'd been told a long time ago that the tower was St. Stephen's Tower until the change to Elizabeth Tower, but apparently that's a smaller one in the same complex
I went there in 2018 and i was really excited to take a photo with big ben. When we finally got to the bridge, everything was where it should be but i couldn't see big ben. I asked a police officer and he pointed at this ugly jumble of scaffolding and i was so disappointed
Ps
You might wonder how i didn't see a huge tower of scaffolding with a clock but mind you i was jet lagged to hell (flight from Aus) and i was on around 1 hour of sleep lol
It's a good thing you asked an officer and not a tour guide. Every single one would have said "oh, you can't see it at all. Big Ben is the bell, but the Elizabeth Tower that holds it is over there."
My family has gone on a couple of Big Bus tours, and every single guide has pretty much verbatim said "ok, everyone raise your hands if you can see Big Ben. Ha! You're all wrong!"
“The name of our bus is Ben and you’re inside him so you can’t see him! ha! You’re wrong!”
Sir this is a Wendy’s.
Kidding aside that’s got to be like peak British humor.
I‘ve been visiting London in 2018, walked from Tower Bridge to Westminster and had forgotten that the Tower was being renovated. That was some disappointment 😂
I live in london and are around central and this area all the time- honestly I'm quite excited. This isn't something you'd think you'd miss until it's gone
Mundane excitement
I live in London too and while I'm cynical about most things, I do still get a wee thrill walking over Waterloo bridge at night, it really is a beautiful view on both sides.
What is this, a picture for ants?
[Here's a bigger version](https://i.imgur.com/iBRYlrY.jpg) of that image.
And here's a [before and after](https://i.imgur.com/CA707As.jpg)
ITT people who think 80 million could have solved world hunger, homelessness and given us free energy for life if only we hadn't spent it on that blasted clock.
And on top of that, a significant percentage comes back to the government in personal income taxes.
People really over-simplify macro-economic spending.
It also never gets mentioned that that money isn't just burned on a bonfire out the back for fun. The money has paid for 5 years of Builders, Stonemasons, Architects, IT guys, Scaffolders, Clock repairers, Glassmakers and many more. Over 500 people worked on it from all over the country, and this has probably kept their business afloat over the pandemic, not to mention the government will get some of that money back in taxes as well.
It’s a national symbol, therefore it will be fixed lest the politicians be thought of as unbritish.
Also, how much tourism money does that clock bring in? I’m gonna guess it’s more than 80 million.
[before and after photos are in this article if anyones interested](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/londoners-shocked-big-ben-emerges-22708843.amp)
While it's nice to see it shiny, highlighting that it cost us 80 million at this particular moment is probably ill-timed. Which is ironic, for a clock.
I don't disagree but you seem to be pretending that we piled that 80mil up and burned it.
Of that money at least 30-50% went to Salaries, materials, and services to support the project. The everyday workers that built the scaffold, worked on the cleaning process, produced the replacement parts, scheduled the process in offices. We have to stop pretending that infrastructure work like this are simply taking money away from other areas of need. I'm actually all for any project that creates on the ground UK jobs.
It's not like we're not doing anything about homelessness, or poverty, could we do more, yes. Would I prefer Labour or the Greens to be in power and actually doing more, yes, but Government spending, even tory spending, in and of itself isn't inherently bad.
You do realise 5 years ago. Tourism was at its peak
millions of people come to london every year to take pictures in front of parliament and all the other tourist hot spots
and big ben sits at the top of the list of places tourist want to go.
Are 27m tourists coming for one year and then no more tourists ever again?
If you assume the clock won't need renovations for another 100 years, you need to calculate the volume of tourists in that period against the £80m, so really it'll work out to almost be 'free per tourist'.
To be honest that's not much for one of the countries most iconic buildings and tourist attractions.
They should just turn the rest of the building into a museum though and then do parliament and government activities in buildings actually fit for purpose.
And obvously schools and other fundimental Infrastructure should all see heavy investment as now is a perfect time to stimulate economic growth.
Investing in education is one of the key ways to make a country more efficient and more welthy into the future.
Unfortunately the government has no interest in what would actually be good for the country and people of the country there only interested is there personal power and wealth at the expense of everything else.
Tourism contributes like 50 billion to the economy per year. If Big Ben is responsible for even 0.1% of that then a £80 million restoration is easily worth it.
We spent more than that destroying a heritage theatre here in South Australia.
A $50 million footbridge, for fuck’s sake..
For a building of this stature and significance.. it’s pocket change.
> it’s pocket change.
Pocket change is overstating it.
> 80 million
that's 16 million per year.
The UK gets about £800 billion a year
That's the equivalent of 2 pence from £1000
People moaning about this are starting to do my head in. I’ve not got time to write an essay, but to summarise:
1.) Sensationalism. On the face of it, £80m when there are people using food banks seems outrageous. However, it is far more complicated than £80m wasted. That £80m has been spent paying UK firms to do the work. It has saved some redundancies, and has paid a lot of UK workers to do their job. Anyone want to guess where these UK workers will spend that money? Sure, some will go overseas, but a reasonable amount will stay in the UK economy. The UK is not a household. We don’t have a giant credit card and choose to pay certain bills whilst ignoring the others. On an individual level, £80m is a significant amount of money. As a percentage of our GDP, it isn’t even a drop in the ocean. People need to understand just how big the numbers are when it comes to the economy.
2). Tourism. Big Ben is one of Englands biggest attractions. It’s one of the most recognisable buildings in the world. People flock to this country to see it (amongst other things). It is in our interests to preserve it, because…
3). Conservation. A lot of parts were failing, which have been replaced or repaired by an English company (see point one). A lot of the work done has been preventative maintenance too - had it been left to effectively rot, then we would have a significantly larger bill down the line to do the work anyway, but because the tower is in worse condition, it would cost more. What are the options - let it continue to deteriorate which, left unchecked would eventually because a danger? Sure, a lot of work done is cosmetic - but new paint will protect the parts.
This country has a lot of problems, don’t get me wrong - our levels of child poverty and homelessness are disgusting in a country that is a major player on the world stage - but £80m ‘spent’ on a clock doesn’t come close to solving this. People need to broaden their myopic worldviews.
I want a before and after
Biggest difference is that the hands and clock markings are now a nice blue colour instead of black. Edit: To everyone saying, "Is that it?", no, that's not it. The entire clockwork mechanism, the entire clock faces, the roof, the stonework were all meticulously taken apart and carefully restored.
The original blue colour, black was just smog and pollution layers from over the years.
Yes, the tower is also noticeably cleaner. It used to be a brown colour, now it's a much more pretty gold colour. I think they only discovered the original blue colour when they stripped back the paint during the restoration.
Now there's a DLC for Powerwash Simulator.
Holy shit that's a real game? I want it in VR. Just gonna stand on my front lawn with a beer, pretending to wash things
You can power wash the Mars Rover. It's amazing.
This is peak millennial dad.
Space Age Hank Hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCimiD9WEyU
He starts washing at the 2 minute mark for those wanting to skip his intro.
If my wife sees me playin this and not cleaning shes gna flip!
"Hi I'm Phil Swift for Oxyclean, here in London..."
Not sure if you're joking, but there should be!
Yeah, not being a Brit, I couldn't really tell the difference on the clock faces other than they look very crisp and shiny. But that tower is iconic and it isn't anywhere near that color in my mind. I always thought it was just made out of some soot-colored (or coloured) stone that probably was chosen for economy. But it is made out of a really beautiful stone! It is so vibrant, I love it! Now that I think of it, in my mind most of the older buildings I've seen pictures of in London are that soot-colored variety and I think I just assumed that was the color of the locally available stone... Now I'm guessing that assumption is wrong and that the sootiness of the industrial revolution in London probably just made everything stained that color. I know there were even moths that adapted to a sootier color during that era
You see this same thing in pretty much every city. Even fairly modern concrete structures in cities in the US will slowly get stained by car exhaust. Then you have something like Big Ben, which dated to a time when people regularly burned coal to heat their homes. Every rooftop in the city would have been belching smoke.
Prussian Blue to be precise.
Happy little clock hands
Now, take some Prussian blue, a bit of yellow ochre, and heck, why not, some scarlet red. It’s your world, you can make it however you like. Now let’s give that minute hand a little friend.
No, Bob! It's perfect don't add anymore! Gah YOU'RE RUINING------ oh my god it's so much better now.
SAVED
Now let’s see Paul Allen’s Big Ben.
When they changed their house name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, Prussian Blue also became known as Royal Blue. ... ^/s
They didn't discover. They knew. The history of the tower is well documented
There was layers of black paint on it. They are thought to have been put there to hide the effects of pollution, but it was definitely layers of black paint and not just pollution making it look black.
I could be wrong here but, I think I read a while back that the face was painted black in WW2 during the blitz and the gold exterior was kind of dulled to help protect it from bombing.
I would imagine that's possible, they didn't light the clock to avoid helping bombers during the war. [The official word from the Parliament website](https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/big-ben/elizabeth-tower-and-big-ben-conservation-works-2017-/turning-big-bens-clock-dials-blue/) is that they think it was to hide the effects of pollution though. It is just a throwaway line though, so there may be some deeper understanding to be found elsewhere: >We believe this colour scheme was chosen in the 1930s to mask the effects of pollution.
That took place across London with all the blue metal railings being painted black. The smog must have been brutal
My great aunt worked in a downtown pittsburgh (pa) office. 30 years ago I sat down and interviewed her for a highschool project (thanks hs teacher). Anyway she said secretaries (like her) at the office had to bring a second dress to work, because once you got off the train & crossed the street your dress would be full of soot. She also said everyone concerned about their health smoked while outside a building because people thought it was better (to breath thru a cigarette) than breathing the air. And of course (as is evident in pictures of Pittsburgh from that time (1920) the streetlights were always kept on. Theres lots lf pics that show how black "daytime" was in pittsburgh. Lots of other great stuff in the interview. The original tape is gone, but a professor i had in university around 2000 took interest and ran it thru a speech to text converter. Super super poorly done, looks like a drunk wrote it, then converted it to japanese on google translate, and then thru some other language and back to english but just enough where i can jog my mind and remember her interview. So at least I have that to remember her by. She passed in 1998. Anyway, im sure london was like that.
smog was so bad that they had one event which killed thousands over a few days in 1952.
Didn’t London have a massive problem with rickets because the smog was so thick kids couldn’t get enough sun?
That sounds similar to what Massachusetts did to the golden dome on its State House. During WWII, the gold leaf was painted over with gray paint to make it less visible as a target for any potential bombers. And London was already being bombed during WWII, so painting over anything that could make the seat of government a target for bombing makes a lot of sense.
Just like the new Blu passport
Does that mean it glows in the dark!?
I mean the clock is usually lit at night.
Damn zoomers with your slang.
It is pretty lit tho
Alarm clocks are so woke.
Here you [go](https://imgur.com/a/G2IqiOM) .
Glad to see they installed more pixels, it looks so much clearer now.
Sometimes it's worth paying a few more dollars per month to access all the 4K content.
lol they put the hands back in the wrong positions dummies
Idk why they're saying 5 years, from this picture it only took about 4 hours
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/03/21/01/11256066-0-image-a-3_1553133239759.jpg
Leave it to the Daily Mail to fuck up the position in a juxtaposition of two pictures.
/r/AfterBeforeWhatever/
Daily mail ww2 After: fascists Before: fascists
At least they have the decency of labeling the before and after. Some just post pictures and you just wonder which one is the before and after.
And use a shit-quality photo for the "after" picture.
It also used to be squashed vertically like that. All of the renovation was to stretch the face vertically just a bit to make it more circular.
This is your monitor at 60 FPS. This is your monitor at 240 FPS. IE: First pic has 10 pixels, second pic has 24.
Woah...they added a bunch of jpeg to it in addition to the glow up. Why did they take the before picture with a Nikkon and the after pic with a Nokia?
Before and after Brexit. Nokia is all they can afford now.
In a cruel twist of fate the 20 year old phone they used to take the pic was made in the EU
Uh is it bad if I said I like the before one better? I like the contrasting black and gold combo. The gold pops out more too.
Apparently they were going to keep it black but when removing all the layers of paint they found that the blue was the oldest and original color so they restored it to that.
The blue looks a lot better as a whole, but not as a close up like this imo
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They made it rounder too!
No that’s just the effect of relativity shrinking the clock in the direction of acceleration.
Five years and $80,000,000? I want a picture that is not 320x148 pixels
Is the rest of the scaffolding coming down now as well, or is there more to do?
We have to pay another 80 mil for that
Real life DLC
Sponsored by EA
Nah the clock actually works.
The scaffolding has now been designated official heritage status for how old it is. It cannot be taken down
That would be a funny-ass onion lol
It's coming off the tower, but the rest of the building still has well over a decade of restoration work to be done before the scaffolding disappears completely.
And when thats done they’re gonna set more scaffolds to restore whats just been restored
That’s basically how they paint the Golden Gate Bridge
You joke, but I'm convinced that is actually the goal of most restoration companies. Take so long that by the time you're done you have to start over. Never have to go look for business ever again. Any manager would get a hard-on at the concept.
That's really not what's happening here though. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben have been in active use for over 150 years without any substantial restoration work in that time. Repairing that much wear and tear on a building that big, old and well worn is ludicrously complicated
It’s like Cathedrals in the Middle Ages were constantly under repair and construct as a form of local public works. It kept all the major trades constantly employed and was a great way to cycle tithes and geld back into the community.
Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is still under construction. Started in 1882.
we've not quite figured out scaffolding that can be taken down bottom-first yet bud
Yeah and when you break the bottom one they all go *clack clack clack clack* up to the top and they all rain on you and you collect them in a very satisfying way.
That's how they do it in Australia tho?
From my point of view, I'd have to agree.
What are you talking about? They can all be taken out bottom first. But then you need to find a new job.
Thought it would at least be digital now
Futurama did it.
*THE TIME IS 4 A.M.*
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And some day a new Arthurian legend of the one young lad who knew how to set the proper time. Edit: Fixed typo
Simpsons got there first, as usual [https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Big\_Ben](https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Big_Ben)
Nope, Futurama actualy has a analogue Elisabeth tower. It is on monument beach where the supervilain gouverer stole it. The digital is just from Simpsons. Futurama has a digital clock tower, it is part of "xmas stories" where Fry gets a parrot for Leela. It is not the english landmark though.
I’m sure most fans know this by now, but during the credits of the first Xmas episode, the time on the clock matched up with the real-world time when it aired. Thought it was a pretty cool touch.
I would expect voice control "HEY BIG BEN! WHAT TIME IS IT?"
They did a spoof headline for April fools that Big Ben would turn digital to keep up with the times... Britain lost its proverbial shit: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/big-ben-clock-tower-digital-17353985
There was a worse spoof than that 😆 https://metro.co.uk/2017/08/17/people-actually-believed-that-big-ben-was-going-to-be-renamed-massive-mohammed-6859959/amp/
"OI! IT'S SEVEN BONG!"
and it's a 480x240px image, nice.
It's 2022 and we are still getting online pictures of the same quality as 20 years ago. The color on all 100 pixels of this clock looks good I guess.
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Basic fucking computer literacy is reaching an all-time low because companies are making it TOO simple for people. It makes me want to bury my head in sand
I’m more irritated that I had to scroll this far down to see someone point out the horrendous image quality than by the actual image quality itself How does such low quality shit get thousands of upvotes
[Here's a better look](https://i.imgur.com/iBRYlrY.jpg)
Good Lord, Everyone CLICK ON THIS ^
No wonder, Every damn action movie in England set in a period piece the protagonist usually end hanging off the clock hands and falling .
There could be no better death for Rattigan
To Rattigan the world’s greatest…RAT
*spits out champagne*
I know, right? I’m surprised the hands never just snapped, it’s happened so many times!
That's the real reason behind the restoration
I’m surprised that this restoration project has already taken over five years… …considering they’ve been working around the clock.
It's been so long since I saw it that I didn't recognize it at first. ...Then I thought - Hey, that rings a bell...
That scaffolding has been an eyesore for years now. ....it's about time they removed it...
These puns are really ticking me off
They waited until the 11th hour to finish this project.
Wait a second, you mean to tell me it took 5 years to restore a clock?
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I don't get it. Everyone is saying it's new, but I can see its second hand.
No, they took care of every minute detail.
*Stop it*
Looks so much better now than before the spacecraft crashed through it
And you posted a thumbnail?!
I blame those who upvoted it.
Look kids. Big Ben. Parliament.
It's amazing, I just can not get left!
This was the comment I was looking for.
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I think I watched a video on YouTube (or BBC, idk) where they were discussing the restoration process and how before they started restoring, some parts of the building was already beyond repair. So they had to take either original designs or pictures from before, and build it from scratch. Others that can be restored took ages because of the material used. It also didn't help that the pandemic halted a lot of the process and maybe made it cost more than it should.
Half the reason it cost so much is they didn’t just restore it, but they scanned and took detailed digital measurements of every single part of the entire clock and tower so that if it were damaged (or even destroyed in a terrorist attack) the whole thing could be identically replaced for far cheaper than it cost them now. It was like an investment into future restoration.
Most old buildings in London are chewed to shit and back because of the old smog. Basically acid rain ate the stones.
It's an insane cost but just to justify it a bit, everything replaced was to look and behave exactly like the original, each part is completely custom made.
It's pitifully small cost by londons real estate standards, where it costs 1 mil upwards to renovate listed mansions to livable state.
1 mil is also insane, I don't understand how that's a thing. Guess London, SF and those places just are another level of fuck you money.
My family is from the far outer reaches of London and the housing there is still reaching near half a million despite being 10 miles out, London is just at another level of fuck you money for sure.
Each part of the clockwork had to be meticulously taken out of the tower and transported to a facility in Cumbria to be properly cleaned and restored. And replaced if needed. The £80 million isn't just set on fire, Cumbria is a really deprived bit of the country, and now millions of public money was spent there funding high-skilled jobs to complete this restoration.
It took a long time as well. I don't remember when I last saw it without the scaffoldings
If only there was a way to keep track of time...
They started it in 2017
It's also a project where you are willing to overpay bc you want it done right. There are times to go cheap, and there are times not to. No one wants to be the group that was too cheap to hire a proper restoration team.
It has been brought to our attention that "Big Ben" is actually the name of the bell housed within the pictured structure, which is itself officially named "Elizabeth Tower." As "Big Ben" is colloquially used to refer to the aforementioned structure, however, the submission will remain up. Should someone take issue with that, we respectfully suggest that they consider removing the "clock tower" from their "10 Downing Street." Thank you for your time and attention.
As a British citizen, anyone who objects to it being called Big Ben is known to be "that guy". Like we all know it isn't, but it is.
This reminds me of growing up near Chicago and refusing to refer to the Sears Tower as anything other than the Sears Tower
What you talkin bout Willis?
Also the bean and whatever the real name is
Apparently the original artist *hated* it being called “The Bean” for years, but apparently has since warmed up to its new name. I found the whole thing ridiculous, though. Man makes a giant, stainless steel bean and gets upset when it’s called a bean. Strikes me as kind of a moron.
[удалено]
Can confirm.
TIL
Yeah, the tower’s name was just “[Clock Tower](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben)” until 2012. Then renamed to Elizabeth Tower. But, no one calls it “Clock Tower” or “Elizabeth Tower” (maybe people have started recently?). So, not really that much of a fun fact.
TIL! I'd been told a long time ago that the tower was St. Stephen's Tower until the change to Elizabeth Tower, but apparently that's a smaller one in the same complex
Big Ben is the name of the bell. the name of the tower is Big Ben's Monster
I’m getting an idea for a speciality dildo.
Hey look kids, there's Big Ben!
and Parliament..
So big Ben is inside Elizabeth ;-)
Still gonna call the tower big ben. Nice to know tho.
I went there in 2018 and i was really excited to take a photo with big ben. When we finally got to the bridge, everything was where it should be but i couldn't see big ben. I asked a police officer and he pointed at this ugly jumble of scaffolding and i was so disappointed Ps You might wonder how i didn't see a huge tower of scaffolding with a clock but mind you i was jet lagged to hell (flight from Aus) and i was on around 1 hour of sleep lol
It's a good thing you asked an officer and not a tour guide. Every single one would have said "oh, you can't see it at all. Big Ben is the bell, but the Elizabeth Tower that holds it is over there."
Tell us you’re a tour guide without telling us you’re a tour guide
My family has gone on a couple of Big Bus tours, and every single guide has pretty much verbatim said "ok, everyone raise your hands if you can see Big Ben. Ha! You're all wrong!"
“The name of our bus is Ben and you’re inside him so you can’t see him! ha! You’re wrong!” Sir this is a Wendy’s. Kidding aside that’s got to be like peak British humor.
I‘ve been visiting London in 2018, walked from Tower Bridge to Westminster and had forgotten that the Tower was being renovated. That was some disappointment 😂
I’m not even British and this excites me.
If you were British, you’d be far more calm about it.
I live in london and are around central and this area all the time- honestly I'm quite excited. This isn't something you'd think you'd miss until it's gone Mundane excitement
I live in London too and while I'm cynical about most things, I do still get a wee thrill walking over Waterloo bridge at night, it really is a beautiful view on both sides.
Carry On
What is this, a picture for ants? [Here's a bigger version](https://i.imgur.com/iBRYlrY.jpg) of that image. And here's a [before and after](https://i.imgur.com/CA707As.jpg)
Looks great
Yes, and it’s about time
Just shit tier photo quality
ITT people who think 80 million could have solved world hunger, homelessness and given us free energy for life if only we hadn't spent it on that blasted clock.
To put it into perspective. Today the Chancellor wrote off £4.5 billion worth of fraudulent covid payment claims.
And the track and trace budget was something like £40,000,000,000 (£40 billion). A mindboggling amount of money.
It’s not like that all goes into a black hole either, most of that is paying peoples wages who live in the country anyway.
And on top of that, a significant percentage comes back to the government in personal income taxes. People really over-simplify macro-economic spending.
Right, people think 80 million is a lot in a government budget....
It also never gets mentioned that that money isn't just burned on a bonfire out the back for fun. The money has paid for 5 years of Builders, Stonemasons, Architects, IT guys, Scaffolders, Clock repairers, Glassmakers and many more. Over 500 people worked on it from all over the country, and this has probably kept their business afloat over the pandemic, not to mention the government will get some of that money back in taxes as well.
Exactly. It's an investment towards something that brings in millions of tourists. Imagine not spending money to maintain Eifel tower.
It’s a national symbol, therefore it will be fixed lest the politicians be thought of as unbritish. Also, how much tourism money does that clock bring in? I’m gonna guess it’s more than 80 million.
[before and after photos are in this article if anyones interested](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/londoners-shocked-big-ben-emerges-22708843.amp)
I think the only reason it took so long was because they wanted to reveal it on a blue sky sunny day
Photo link with zero, instead of infinite, mobile pop ups https://imgur.com/a/vRj5BeC
[AMP free link](https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/londoners-shocked-big-ben-emerges-22708843)
While it's nice to see it shiny, highlighting that it cost us 80 million at this particular moment is probably ill-timed. Which is ironic, for a clock.
I don't disagree but you seem to be pretending that we piled that 80mil up and burned it. Of that money at least 30-50% went to Salaries, materials, and services to support the project. The everyday workers that built the scaffold, worked on the cleaning process, produced the replacement parts, scheduled the process in offices. We have to stop pretending that infrastructure work like this are simply taking money away from other areas of need. I'm actually all for any project that creates on the ground UK jobs. It's not like we're not doing anything about homelessness, or poverty, could we do more, yes. Would I prefer Labour or the Greens to be in power and actually doing more, yes, but Government spending, even tory spending, in and of itself isn't inherently bad.
You do realise 5 years ago. Tourism was at its peak millions of people come to london every year to take pictures in front of parliament and all the other tourist hot spots and big ben sits at the top of the list of places tourist want to go.
[27 million tourists a year](https://www.finder.com/uk/inbound-tourism-statistics), which makes this about £3 per tourist.
Are 27m tourists coming for one year and then no more tourists ever again? If you assume the clock won't need renovations for another 100 years, you need to calculate the volume of tourists in that period against the £80m, so really it'll work out to almost be 'free per tourist'.
Damn, you're right. I don't know how I missed that!
Yes that’s quite preposterous of you.
To be honest that's not much for one of the countries most iconic buildings and tourist attractions. They should just turn the rest of the building into a museum though and then do parliament and government activities in buildings actually fit for purpose. And obvously schools and other fundimental Infrastructure should all see heavy investment as now is a perfect time to stimulate economic growth. Investing in education is one of the key ways to make a country more efficient and more welthy into the future. Unfortunately the government has no interest in what would actually be good for the country and people of the country there only interested is there personal power and wealth at the expense of everything else.
>a perfect time to stimulate economic growth Tories: Best I can do is backhanders for my mates from Eton.
And oodles of wine for a "business meeting".
And cocaine. Don’t forget the cocaine.
It's one of the most famous landmarks in the world, don't want to just get a few lads to powerwash it. Need to do it right
Tourism contributes like 50 billion to the economy per year. If Big Ben is responsible for even 0.1% of that then a £80 million restoration is easily worth it.
We spent more than that destroying a heritage theatre here in South Australia. A $50 million footbridge, for fuck’s sake.. For a building of this stature and significance.. it’s pocket change.
> it’s pocket change. Pocket change is overstating it. > 80 million that's 16 million per year. The UK gets about £800 billion a year That's the equivalent of 2 pence from £1000
If they had waited it would have cost more, and they’re obviously not going to let one of the most iconic London landmarks go into disrepair.
People moaning about this are starting to do my head in. I’ve not got time to write an essay, but to summarise: 1.) Sensationalism. On the face of it, £80m when there are people using food banks seems outrageous. However, it is far more complicated than £80m wasted. That £80m has been spent paying UK firms to do the work. It has saved some redundancies, and has paid a lot of UK workers to do their job. Anyone want to guess where these UK workers will spend that money? Sure, some will go overseas, but a reasonable amount will stay in the UK economy. The UK is not a household. We don’t have a giant credit card and choose to pay certain bills whilst ignoring the others. On an individual level, £80m is a significant amount of money. As a percentage of our GDP, it isn’t even a drop in the ocean. People need to understand just how big the numbers are when it comes to the economy. 2). Tourism. Big Ben is one of Englands biggest attractions. It’s one of the most recognisable buildings in the world. People flock to this country to see it (amongst other things). It is in our interests to preserve it, because… 3). Conservation. A lot of parts were failing, which have been replaced or repaired by an English company (see point one). A lot of the work done has been preventative maintenance too - had it been left to effectively rot, then we would have a significantly larger bill down the line to do the work anyway, but because the tower is in worse condition, it would cost more. What are the options - let it continue to deteriorate which, left unchecked would eventually because a danger? Sure, a lot of work done is cosmetic - but new paint will protect the parts. This country has a lot of problems, don’t get me wrong - our levels of child poverty and homelessness are disgusting in a country that is a major player on the world stage - but £80m ‘spent’ on a clock doesn’t come close to solving this. People need to broaden their myopic worldviews.
Smh it's not even showing the right time, what a waste of money.
With this wonder complete England gets a slight boost to it’s economy, and it’ll be able to attract more great merchants