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Now and again I look up some of the websites recording notable events on a day-by-day basis to see whether there is something interesting to chat about.
According to a number of websites, today is the day on which in 1678 Lady Godiva made her famous horse-ride though Coventry wearing just her long hair. I set about looking at some of the fables about this lady who, by her ride, persuaded her husband to remit some of the oppressive taxes he had levied on his tenants. I was going to ponder whether many of our lady MPs would do the same thing to relieve us of some of our tax burdens.
But it was a pointless exercise since I quickly found that Lady Godiva was, in fact, an 11th-century noblewoman and had been dead for over five hundred years by the date postulated by some of these websites.
I guess that the mistake was made by one website and then copied by some of the others. It demonstrated to me the need to check facts.
So as I couldn’t write about the Lady Godiva and her naked ride through Coventry, I looked around for something else to ponder on. In truth, there wasn’t much to interest me on another day dominated by politics, taxes, the economy and other such dire stories.
However, there was one; about Big Ben, the clock standing at the top of the 360-foot high St. Stephen’s Tower above the Houses of Parliament. For today is the day in 1859 when the clock struck the hours for the first time.
Big Ben featured large in my working life for one of its clock-faces could be seen from the flat we lived in after we got married, and I was to see it many times afterwards when working in London. For years I was to drive past it twice a day, checking my watch against it and noting when Parliament was sitting by the light atop its tower.
The original Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire in 1834 and a new building was erected in the Perpendicular Gothic style. The architect was Charles Barry who was assisted by Augustus Pugin. Construction commenced in 1840 and continued for the next thirty years.
St. Stephen’s Tower was completed in 1859 and soon became known as Big Ben after its principal bell, a massive thing weighing 13.5 tons, cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Two months after it was first struck, the bell cracked and a lighter hammer was ultimately designed, the bell rotated and put back into use again three years later. Curiously, the bell was never repaired.
The clock itself was built by Dent & Co. to a design by a barrister and amateur horologer, Edmund Dennison, and the Astronomy Royal, Sir George Airy, and is renowned for its accuracy. Since it was put into service, it has suffered only one serious breakdown.
There are no conclusions to be drawn from this little essay, but I thought it might be interesting seeing that I couldn’t write about Lady Godiva!
.
Now and again I look up some of the websites recording notable events on a day-by-day basis to see whether there is something interesting to chat about.
According to a number of websites, today is the day on which in 1678 Lady Godiva made her famous horse-ride though Coventry wearing just her long hair. I set about looking at some of the fables about this lady who, by her ride, persuaded her husband to remit some of the oppressive taxes he had levied on his tenants. I was going to ponder whether many of our lady MPs would do the same thing to relieve us of some of our tax burdens.
But it was a pointless exercise since I quickly found that Lady Godiva was, in fact, an 11th-century noblewoman and had been dead for over five hundred years by the date postulated by some of these websites.
I guess that the mistake was made by one website and then copied by some of the others. It demonstrated to me the need to check facts.
So as I couldn’t write about the Lady Godiva and her naked ride through Coventry, I looked around for something else to ponder on. In truth, there wasn’t much to interest me on another day dominated by politics, taxes, the economy and other such dire stories.
However, there was one; about Big Ben, the clock standing at the top of the 360-foot high St. Stephen’s Tower above the Houses of Parliament. For today is the day in 1859 when the clock struck the hours for the first time.
Big Ben featured large in my working life for one of its clock-faces could be seen from the flat we lived in after we got married, and I was to see it many times afterwards when working in London. For years I was to drive past it twice a day, checking my watch against it and noting when Parliament was sitting by the light atop its tower.
The original Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire in 1834 and a new building was erected in the Perpendicular Gothic style. The architect was Charles Barry who was assisted by Augustus Pugin. Construction commenced in 1840 and continued for the next thirty years.
St. Stephen’s Tower was completed in 1859 and soon became known as Big Ben after its principal bell, a massive thing weighing 13.5 tons, cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Two months after it was first struck, the bell cracked and a lighter hammer was ultimately designed, the bell rotated and put back into use again three years later. Curiously, the bell was never repaired.
The clock itself was built by Dent & Co. to a design by a barrister and amateur horologer, Edmund Dennison, and the Astronomy Royal, Sir George Airy, and is renowned for its accuracy. Since it was put into service, it has suffered only one serious breakdown.
There are no conclusions to be drawn from this little essay, but I thought it might be interesting seeing that I couldn’t write about Lady Godiva!
.
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