Big Ben Bonged Throughout The Blitz - So, Why Is It Silent Now?

Big Ben started its four-year ‘silence’ today... but the bongs will not completely disappear from Westminster.

The bell will still be marking Remembrance Sunday’s minute silence and New Year's Eve.

Big Ben's bongs have been silenced as part of a controversial, but much-needed renovation plan.

It will be the first time that the bell has fallen silent since 2007.

The bell has been an almost continuous presence, continuing to chime on the hour, every hour throughout Britain’s tumultuous history, miraculously surviving the blitz and continuing its hourly bongs throughout.

Big Ben came to be something of a symbol of resistance throughout the war years as, during WWII, people all over the nation would gather at 9pm to hear its bongs, and pray for peace.

The tradition was started in 1940 by Major Wellesley Tudor Pole and was wholeheartedly supported by King George VI, Sir Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D.Roosevelt.

Such was the ‘silent minute’s’ popularity in the war years that the BBC would play the chimes of Big Ben at 9pm on a Sunday to signal its beginning.

And the bell will continue its military legacy; although Big Ben’s bongs will not be heard regularly until 2021, its chimes will still ring out on Remembrance Sunday to signal the two minute’s silence.