It was only after I did that that I received the ticket. My MP then sent me over some security questions which I had to email back.
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Give them your full name, age and address (because they have to check you're a constituent). Don't just give them one date, because it books up ages in advance. Give them a range of dates that you can do, at least three or four months in the future. Hap What should you write in your letter?Ĭraig Just tell them you'd like an invite to the 'Big Ben and Elizabeth Tower Tour'. Hap Do you have to pay to get into Big BenĬraig You don't have to pay, but you do need to write a letter to your local MP to get an invite ticket, which will probably take a couple of months at least. And it wasn’t just Big Ben chiming because there were several bells all around us (one for each note of the tune), all pounding out the sound into our vibrating skulls. I think a few of my teeth crumbled into dust as well. The guide had given us some earplugs beforehand which we were obliged to wedge into our lugs, but it was still astonishingly loud – loud enough to make my bones vibrate. There really was no escape from his anger. One minute the big bell was sleeping peacefully and then it was as if he’d suddenly become rage and thunder. This was such a deep and visceral thrill that words can never do it justice. Incredibly, the guide even let us stand inside the bell room whilst it chimed ten. The clock tower belfry and Big Ben bellĪfter that bit of excitement we headed up to the belfry to see Big Ben himself. Imagine the sound of a factory gone wrong: long levers banging up and down, cogs clanking round and round, and heavy hammers bashing the bells tens of meters above your head. When the whole thing whirred into action it scared the living daylights out of us. Just before it struck half-past nine he warned us of a coming cacophony of noise and he wasn’t joking. This room looked more like a mini-factory with pulleys, pendulums, cogs and whirring wheels all over the place.
After that he took us up another flight of stairs to the clock mechanism. Our guide was pretty good and he went into plenty of detail, but there wasn’t a lot to actually see in this first room, just a big poster on the wall and some seats were we could rest and catch our breath. The first part of the talk was all about the history of the bell: who designed it, who built it, and who installed it. Paul’s Cathedral then you will find this easy-peasy. So when you get that scary letter warning you to write your will beforehand, just ignore it – if you’ve ever managed to climb to the top of The Monument or St. So rest assured that you don’t have to climb all 334 steps in one go, which was certainly a big relief to me. And the first part is by far the hardest – 115 steps to the first room.
The tour doesn’t include any part of Parliament other than the clock tower itself, so it’s strictly about Big Ben. (So that’s where all of our taxes are going – the MPs are planting trees indoors!) After that you get led through an underground tunnel that takes you below the road towards Big Ben. It’s quite an interesting place to begin because it lets you have a quick nose around a normally inaccessible building – and you can see those notorious trees in the atrium. The meeting point for the tour is across the road in Portcullis House where most of the MPs have their day-to-day offices. I was seriously starting to have second thoughts.
It’s 334 spiral steps to the top which is twenty more than The Monument, and I remember having problems climbing those with my dodgy knees, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to Big Ben after reading that letter. On the next page they start talking about the stairs: no one with a heart complaint, no one with breathing problems or vertigo can go, and pregnant women shouldn’t even think about it.
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First of all they make you fill in a spreadsheet with all your personal details so the security people can check you’re not a terrorist, and then they insist that you bring along two forms of ID (like a passport, driving license or utility bill) and if you turn up one minute late you won’t be allowed in (no exceptions!). When you finally get the acceptance letter they make it sound a lot scarier than it actually is. I did that way back in May and was given a tour date four months later – so that shows you how far in advance you have to plan it (or maybe I just have a lousy MP). You have to write a letter to your local MP first and ask for an invite. You can’t just turn up and ask for a tour. It’s not as easy to get into Big Ben as it is to get into Parliament itself, which is a bit weird.
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