The world famous Big Ben has become such a part of the way of life in London that many of the city's inhabitants even set their own watches to the chimes of this giant timepiece.
However, experts reveal that the iconic clock, which is historically known for its precision despite its size, has apparently been ringing six seconds faster than normal over the past two weeks.
The mismatch in Big Ben's timing was first noticed during BBC Radio 4's news program PM, which alerted the great clock's keeper to the situation.
Eddie Mair, news presenter of PM, noted that it was not rare for the beginning of the chimes to be different but that Big Ben's ringing has been erratic as of late. He pointed out that the earliest chimes of the giant clock usually start at around 27 seconds to six o'clock in the afternoon, but it started seven seconds earlier the previous week.
The great clock's keeper and its three clocksmiths are now working to address the inaccuracy in Big Ben's timing.
The 156-year-old timepiece is regularly attended to by a team of clocksmiths around three times every week in order to wind the giant clock. Several factors can affect the accuracy of Big Ben such as the weather, pressure from the atmosphere or even its old age.
Ian Westworth, clocksmith working in the Palace of Westminster, said that they had been working on fixing the problem with Big Ben's timing, but that they have yet to identify the cause.
"The error started building up and it went slightly unnoticed over a weekend," Westworth said.
"You can't just wind the hands forward or wind the bell forward to make it catch up those five or six seconds that it was wrong."
For the great clock to be recalibrated, the clocksmiths had to take weight off of its pendulum in order to slow it down. Westworth said that the work to fix Big Ben's timing encouraged the iconic clock to correct itself by slowing its run down.
Westworth said that the great clock has now settled down, but he cautioned that timepiece could still experience a few more inaccuracies in its timing in the future.
Photo: Linus Follert | Flickr
