Today I had the fantastic opportunity to ascend the Palace of Westminster clock tower. The tour started from Portcullis House (where all the MPs offices are) across the road from Parliament. From here I was led by my tour guide down a pair of smart escalators and through a wonderful tunnel under the road that links the building to the palace. In this smart white tiled tunnel, which must be many many years old, there were two delightful old statues. Person height, one was of the English lion and the other the Scottish unicorn; a pair which I have always thought of as the perfect symbols for a United Kingdom – strength, power, majesty and magic.

Anyway, once inside the palace I was led to the clock tower through some very beautiful Gothic corridors. Inside the tower the pure Victorian engineering hits you for the first time. Not decorated because it was not designed to be seen, there is a spiral staircase completely with iron railings and surrounded by white-washed walls.

As you proceed up the tower you stop off at a number of rooms along the way; originally used for masons during construction and then offices. Today they are only used for tours and act as a miniature museum. From then on you arrive all of a sudden behind one of the famous clock faces or ‘dials’ as they call them. Such an honour to stand there and admire the history and listen to the fantastic little anecdotes from my tour guide. After this we proceeded to look at the mechanism room which I can only describe as a huge feat of engineering for its time – complete with hundreds of cogs, fly wheels, fan brakes and of course the clock hands mechanism.

Finally I arrived at the belfry to be presented by truly awesome views and the bell of Big Ben just a few feet away. The views from here are quite unusual; perspectives of Westminster Bridge and especially Buckingham Palace that I’d never seen before but which also shone a new light on their respective beauties.

I was lucky enough to arrive just in time for the 12 o’clock chimes and thus heard the full sequence of Big Ben and its smaller sisters standing literally less than a meter away from it. Quite an experience and one which this blog post cannot do justice to.

I recommend that you write to your MP and plead for a visit if you want to experience it for yourself.