It is one of the most recognisable sounds in the UK, and one that hasn’t been heard on BBC Radio 4 since New Year’s Eve last year, but from next week the famous bongs of Big Ben will be heard once again on the station.
The most famous bell in the UK will be heard live once again on Monday 6 November, just before the 6pm news bulletin and again before midnight. Listeners will be able to hear the chimes again before Radio 4’s Westminster Hour political discussion programme at 10pm on Sundays.
And after years of only occasional appearances, the chimes will form part of Radio 4’s regular schedule where they will be heard live twice daily and three times on Sundays after new microphones and a live set-up were installed.
To mark the nation’s two-minute silence this Remembrance Sunday, Big Ben will also be heard live on 11 November at 11am, and the bongs will air at 3pm on Christmas Day, before the king’s speech is broadcast on Radio 4.
Big Ben will also ring in the new year for Radio 4 listeners with the sound of 12 full chimes broadcast live to mark the arrival of 2024.
The chiming of the famous landmark had largely been paused on Radio 4 while conservation work took place on the Elizabeth Tower. The work started in 2017 and was projected to cost £29m, but by the time its newly glistening golden exterior was unveiled last year the cost had ballooned to £80m.
Big Ben, which is housed in the tower, was silent for five years and pealed for the first time since its renovation at 11am on Friday 11 November 2022 for Remembrance Sunday, initiating armistice tributes across the country.
Recorded bongs were used to mark the network’s programming and occasionally live chimes were used for other special events. Replacement bells were occasionally called upon to stand in for the out-of-service bell at significant moments – on Christmas Eve in 2018 the bells of Rochdale town hall replaced the usual chimes of Big Ben.
The Elizabeth Tower, which sits at the north-eastern end of the Houses of Parliament and is known as Big Ben after the bell inside, was covered in scaffolding between 2017 and 2022 while it underwent the biggest repair and conservation project in its history.
The clock – which was installed in 1859 with the aim of creating the most accurate public timepiece in the world – and the bell mechanism within it were also repaired. Big Ben’s chimes were silenced at the beginning of the renovation to protect the hearing of the workers on the tower, drawing criticism from senior MPs and then prime minister, Theresa May.
The original cost to taxpayers was estimated to be roughly £29m, but in February 2020 it was confirmed that the Elizabeth Tower had sustained greater damage than originally thought in a May 1941 bombing raid, and asbestos, lead paint and broken glass was discovered, increasing the price tag to nearly £80m.
