When was big ben and the queens palace built?

Answer 1

From the official website of the British Royals:

"Buckingham Palace has served as the official London residence of Britain's sovereigns since 1837.

It evolved from a town house that was owned from the beginning of the eighteenth century by the Dukes of Buckingham. Today it is The Queen's official residence, with 775 rooms.

George III bought Buckingham House in 1761 for his wife Queen Charlotte to use as a comfortable family home close to St James's Palace, where many court functions were held. Buckingham House became known as the Queen's House, and 14 of George III's 15 children were born there.

In 1762 work began on remodelling the house to the King's requirements, to designs by Sir William Chambers, at a cost of £73,000.

George IV, on his accession in 1820, decided to reconstruct the house into a pied-à-terre, using it for the same purpose as his father George III.

As work progressed, and as late as the end of 1826, the King had a change of heart. With the assistance of his architect, John Nash, he set about transforming the house into a palace. Parliament agreed to a budget of £150,000, but the King pressed for £450,000 as a more realistic figure.

Nash retained the main block but doubled its size by adding a new suite of rooms on the garden side facing west. Faced with mellow Bath stone, the external style reflected the French neo-classical influence favoured by George IV.

The remodelled rooms are the State and semi-State Rooms, which remain virtually unchanged since Nash's time.

Many of the pieces of furniture and works of art in these rooms were bought or made for Carlton House (George IV's London base when he was Prince of Wales), which was demolished in 1827.

The north and south wings of Buckingham House were demolished and rebuilt on a larger scale with a triumphal arch - the Marble Arch - as the centrepiece of an enlarged courtyard, to commemorate the British victories at Trafalgar and Waterloo.

By 1829 the costs had escalated to nearly half a million pounds. Nash's extravagance cost him his job, and on the death of George IV in 1830, his younger brother William IV took on Edward Blore to finish the work.

The King never moved into the Palace. Indeed, when the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire in 1834, the King offered the Palace as a new home for Parliament, but the offer was declined.

Queen Victoria was the first sovereign to take up residence in July 1837, just three weeks after her accession, and in June 1838 she was the first British sovereign to leave from Buckingham Palace for a Coronation. Her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840 soon showed up the Palace's shortcomings.

A serious problem for the newly married couple was the absence of any nurseries and too few bedrooms for visitors. The only solution was to move the Marble Arch - it now stands at the north-east corner of Hyde Park - and build a fourth wing, thereby creating a quadrangle.

Blore, the architect in charge, created the East Front and, thanks largely to his builder, Thomas Cubitt, the costs were reduced from £150,000 to £106,000. The cost of the new wing was largely covered by the sale of George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton.

Blore added an attic floor to the main block of the Palace and decorated it externally with marble friezes originally intended for Nash's Marble Arch. The work was completed in 1847.

By the turn of the century the soft French stone used in Blore's East Front was showing signs of deterioration, largely due to London's notorious soot, and required replacing.

In 1913 the decision was taken to reface the façade. Sir Aston Webb, with a number of large public buildings to his credit, was commissioned to create a new design. Webb chose Portland Stone, which took 12 months to prepare before building work could begin. When work did start it took 13 weeks to complete the refacing, a process that included removing the old stonework.

The present forecourt of the Palace, where Changing the Guard takes place, was formed in 1911, as part of the Victoria Memorial scheme.

The gates and railings were also completed in 1911; the North-Centre Gate is now the everyday entrance to the Palace, whilst the Central Gate is used for State occasions and the departure of the guard after Changing the Guard.

The work was completed just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914."

Balmoral Castle:

"Balmoral Castle and the original estate were purchased for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852. The original Balmoral Castle was built in the fifteenth century but it was considered too small.

A new castle was constructed on the site about 90 metres (100 yards) north from the old building. Prince Albert planned the grounds and helped with the design of the castle itself, which was completed in 1856.

The castle has been handed down through their descendants, and today is the traditional holiday home for The Queen and members of her family during the summer vacation period.

Over the years, improvements have been made by successive generations of the Royal family; most recently by The Duke of Edinburgh who has enlarged the flower and vegetable garden and created the water garden."

You can find out more about each Royal residence at http://www.royal.gov.uk where this information comes from.

Big Ben,properly known as The Great Bell of Westminster, was cast in 1856 and is part of The
Palace of Westiminster which houses Parliament.The presence of royal grounds on this site reach back to 1050 when Edward the Confessor built the first palace. A devastating fire in the late 1860's lead to new construction of buildings on site in 1870;the time that Big Ben made its appearance.

Answer 2

Buckingham Palace aka Buck House started in 1703, added to and extended since then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckingham_Palace

Houses of Parliament - aka Palace of Westminster. What you see now was mainly built in the 1840s but some parts are over 900 years old. It is said that the clock tower and the other "Victoria" tower are part of the ventilation system. Remove political hot air, they do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_of_parliament

Answer 3

Big Ben is a bell that sounds the hour in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament. The name of the tower is St Stephen's Tower. Big Ben is not the clock tower. The bell was cast in the 1850s.

Answer 4

I do not know about big ben.The parliament building even existed in 1100ad.So,it might be build thenor so.Buckingham palace was brought by King George -1 AS A PRESENT FOR HIS WIFE FOR 17,000 POUNDS IN THE EARLY 18TH CENTURY.