Welcome to my home.
I live here in this little nest inside this large clock, which is here in this tall clock tower in the great city of London.
I'm a Big Ben bird.
Big Ben is in the Palace of Westminster, which is the main government building in Britain.
This is where the most important decisions in the United Kingdom are made.
It is also where the prime minister works.
The clock tower is 97 meters tall, and it has a very unusual clock.
Most clocks have only one face, but this clock has four faces.
Each one looks in a different direction.
That way, people from all around London can look up and see what time it is.
The clock does not need a battery or electricity like your clocks at home.
This is an old-fashioned clock. It runs on weights.
Increasing the weights slows the clock a tiny bit, while reducing the weights speeds it up a little.
If the clock is not keeping perfect time,
the clock master adds or removes one penny at a time until the weight is just right, and the clock keeps perfect time again.
The clock master still uses the same old-fashioned pennies from when the clock was built.
I often hear people say, "Look over there. It's Big Ben."
Most people think that Big Ben is the name of this tower.
But did you know that Big Ben is not the name of the clock tower?
It's the name of the biggest and most famous bell inside the tower.
The tower itself is called St. Stephen's Tower.
Big Ben rings every hour of the day so that people can hear what time it is.
A hammer strikes the great bell the same number of times as the hour.
So if you count the number of times Big Ben rings, you'll know what time it is.
There are other smaller bells in the tower as well.
These play a short melody every 15 minutes to signal the quarter hours.
Big Ben is one of the biggest bells in the world.
It is much taller than even a really tall man.
Big Ben is 2.8 meters high, and it weighs 13,760 kilograms.
That is more than the weight of 175 men.
It was made on Saturday, April 10, 1858, and was named after Sir Benjamin Hall.
Benjamin, or Ben for short, was a very large man who was in charge of buying the new bell for the St. Stephen's Tower clock.
One of the most amazing things about Big Ben is the place where it was made.
Big Ben comes from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry here in London.
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry is famous because many of the great bells in the world were made here.
But it is also famous because this factory is over four hundred years old.
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry began in 1570 and is still in business today.
It is the oldest company in Britain and one of the oldest companies in the world.
Since the opening of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, there have been over 27 kings and queens in Britain.
Some of them, like King George V and Queen Mary, even visited this factory.
The factory has always been on this same street.
In 1670, during the Great Fire of London, the Whitechapel Bell Foundry burned down.
But right after the fire, the owners rebuilt their factory just across the street.
And that is where it still stands today.
The most famous bells that were made at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry are the Liberty Bell in the United States,
the Great Bell of Montreal Cathedral in Canada, and of course, Big Ben.
But now there are some new, very special bells that are being made at the factory.
They are called the Bells of September.
Three large bells are being made to remember the very sad day when the World Trade Center in New York City was destroyed.
The first one has just been finished.
It was made to look exactly like the Liberty Bell.
Listen! Can you hear that?
It's Big Ben ringing, so it must be twelve o'clock.
I should hurry back to the bell tower now and get my lunch.