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Shell Mex House is 58 metres tall, while the Elizabeth Tower is 96 metres high. It may be the larger of the two clocks, but it can be difficult to notice from street level because of trees blocking the view. Why then don’t Londoners make as much of a fuss about ‘Big Benzene’ as they do about Big Ben? Well, first of all, Big Benzene doesn’t seek to attract as much attention. Although the building is today officially simply known as 80 Strand, it’s still referred to colloquially as Shell Mex House. Its current owners, the German Conley/Conle family, bought it in 2013 for a reported £610 million. 'Big Benzene' as seen from the South Bank of the River Thames (Image: Getty Images)

It was purchased by Westbrook Partners, an American equity firm owned by the Reuben brothers in 2007 for £590 million. The two companies parted ways in 1976, with Shell Mex maintaining ownership of the building until it was sold in the 1990s. Its construction was funded by Shell-Mex and BP after the two companies merged. The building, which was originally built by the Messrsin architectural firm in the Art Deco style, was completed in 1931. That’s because, as the name of the building indicates, the because for several decades served as the headquarters of the Shell petrol company.

In fact, much like Big Ben, the clock on top of Shell Mex House has its own nickname - ‘Big Benzene’. However, the clock on top of Shell Mex House is 7.62 metres in diameter, not only making it the biggest clock in London, but the biggest clock in the entire United Kingdom. That’s right, the clock at the top of Shell Mex House is even bigger than the clocks on top of the Elizabeth Tower, which locals lovingly call Big Ben after the bell inside the tower.Įach of Big Ben’s four clocks are 7 metres in diameter. They started building the tower in 1843 and finished in 1859, making the tower more than 160 years old.'Big Benzene' on top of Shell Mex House (Image: Getty Images) The Palace of Westminster was destroyed in a catastrophic fire in 1834 and parliament decided that they would build a new clock tower as part of the restoration works. With four clockfaces on the tower, that’s a staggering 1,292 individual pieces of glass in total! #3 – Big Ben was built 164 years ago Big Ben the name given to the great bell rather than the actual clock was installed in the Palace of Westminster clock tower in 1859. #2 – The clock face is made from hundreds of individual pieces of glassĮvery clock face is intricately made up of 324 pieces of pot opal glass, all held together with a cast iron frame. The tower itself was previously known as ‘The Clock Tower’, but in 2012 it was renamed Elizabeth Tower to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-high Elizabeth Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time on May 31. Although most people know this iconic landmark as Big Ben, this is actually the name of the bell in the tower – which weighs a whopping 13.7 tonnes! There are a lot of theories about where this name came from one of them being that the bell was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the Chief Commissioner of Works, who was affectionately known as ‘Big Ben’.