Our Latest London Experience – Big Ben Tours

Over the years we have done pretty much every experience in London. We love an educational day out, enjoy doing something different and really appreciate finding things that the whole family will love. So, when I found out about the Big Ben Tours offered by UK Parliament a few months ago, I just had to book it! Can you imagine anything more exciting than seeing the Big Ben bell up close and being there when it chimed? No, neither could we!

Now, I know that Big Ben is the name of the bell, and Elizabeth Tower is the current name of the famous landmark. However, as the UK Parliament website, our tour guides and most of the world know the monument as Big Ben, that’s what I’ll be calling it during this article.

Can you climb Big Ben?

When I told the children we’d booked to climb up Big Ben, Little Man thought we meant scaling the sides of it like Spiderman. Sadly, that is not an option – you cannot physically climb up the outside of Big Ben. But, you can climb the stairs within Big Ben – all 334 of them – and see London from a completely new perspective, whilst learning about one of the most famous buildings in the world.

How do you book a Big Ben Tour?

It took me a while to get the timing right to book our Big Ben Tour tickets on the UK Parliament website. Tickets are released three months in advance, on the second Wednesday of every month at 10am. Tickets cost £35 per adult and £20 per child – but the tour is only open to children aged 11 and over.

The tours are only offered in English and when you book they make it clear that the tours are not for everyone. You do need to be physically fit and healthy and able to climb 334 steps up – and then down again. However, this is broken up into stages so you don’t need to climb all the steps in one go.

Arriving for our Big Ben Tour

We were told to arrive half an hour before our tour started because you have to go through security at Parliament. When we arrived it wasn’t busy at all so we were given our visitor lanyards and went straight through security. It’s very much like airport security and if you can’t take something on a plane, you cannot take it into Parliament.

After security we walked around to Westminster Hall where you have access to the cafe, toilets and shop. It’s also where all of the tours start. You have free time in Westminster Hall until the start of your tour.

Westminster Hall

Westminster Hall is an iconic place. It’s the oldest part of the Parliamentary estate and it’s where Queen Elizabeth II – and many others – have lay in state. There are plaques on the floor to commemorate each time this has happened along with other notable events.

There’s also a temporary exhibition celebrating 300 years of Parliament and the office of Prime Minister and a display exploring how Parliament and its people met the challenges of wartime Britain. These were a great way to pass the time until our tour started.

The Big Ben Tour

At the start of our tour we met our tour guide at the start of Westminster Hall. She checked that our footwear was appropriate, checked us in and, when we were all ready, started the tour. The tour group isn’t very big. There were less than 20 of us in our group and it was a nice size to be able to hear and see everything throughout.

The first stop was to the bottom of the Big Ben tower where we were given lockers to put our belongings in. We were told to put everything in the lockers, especially our phones, and to only keep what we couldn’t live without – medication etc. You aren’t allowed to take photos on the tour so a big thank you to House of Commons for allowing me to use their images in this article.

A lot of people put their coats in the lockers but I had read in one of the Big Ben Tour emails ahead of the visit that it gets very cold and windy at the top and so we kept our coats on. This ended up being the right decision!

We filed into a room where cab drivers used to wait for the MPs at the end of their working day – which has now been turned into the start of the tour. We were given an overview of the tour, shown on a model of Big Ben where we would be climbing and then we started our ascent!

We climbed up a compact staircase – not a tight spiral but still going around and around. The first climb was over 100 stairs, and the longest chunk in one go. I can only compare it to Monument – which is 311 steps, all in one go, and in a spiral. It’s much easier to climb than that but we were all still out of breath each time we stopped.

During the climb we stopped off in exhibition spaces where we had a sit down and learnt more about Big Ben. These spaces featured videos, photos and objects that helped bring the learning to life and kept us all really engaged – as well as helped make the climb more manageable.

We learnt about the history of Big Ben, how it came to be designed and built and all the people who played a part in creating Big Ben – and then keeping it functioning for decades ever since.

One of the stop off points was to see the inner workings of the clock mechanism, seeing how it keeps time so accurately and watching the pendulum going back and forth. We could hear the clock weights behind the walls in front of us and it almost felt like the clock was a living, breathing thing. It was amazing.

A highlight was standing next to the Big Ben bells as it striked the hour. We had actually timed this perfectly, as unbeknownst to us, the 10:45am tour puts you in the bell room ready for the midday chimes. This meant we heard all twelve gongs of the bell. An experience we will always remember.

As you can imagine, the ringing bells are incredibly loud so we were given ear defenders to wear for this part. This is also the only open air part, where the sides of the tower are open to the elements and it was definitely chilly! The Big Ben Tour only stops for extremely hot weather – it carries on in rain, snow or storms so make sure you take your coat with you.

One thing we loved, aside from the bells chiming right next to us, was the view. We spend so much time looking at Big Ben that to see the view from Big Ben instead was just incredible.

It was then time to work our way back down to the ground. This was done gradually, just like the climb, with stops on the way to rest and learn more. I found the climb down harder than the climb up as it felt much more spiral on the way down and we all got a little dizzy!

Our first stop on the descent was a real wow moment where we found ourselves standing behind the clock dial! We saw the lights that illuminate the clock at night, found out that they’re a mixture of white and green lights, and learnt how the clock is cleaned – with difficulty and abseiling, every five years!

Before we knew it we were back on the ground, collecting our belongings and heading for the gift shop and toilets in Westminster Hall. The whole tour lasted just short of two hours and we had a fantastic time. It’s one of the most engaging and memorable experiences we have ever had in London and we’d recommend it to anyone that wants to do something different, see the familiar from a new perspective or have an educational day out with a difference. It will not disappoint.

You can find out more about Big Ben Tours over on the UK Parliament website.

If you’re looking for other things to do in London, these articles might help:

• Educational Days Out in London
• Free Viewing Platforms in London
• Bookish Things To Do in London
• 17 Pubs with Play Areas in London
• Where to have Afternoon Tea in London
• The Best Disney Things to do in London
• Things to do in London on a Rainy Day