GARGOYLES PULLED DOWN
DISTURBED BY DIG BEN Several well-known figures of the Brtish Houses of Parliament who have heard Big Ben strike more than 30,000,000 “ booms ” during their long tenure of office, have lost their seats. They are the “ gargoyles ” which for more than eighty years have decorated the topmost part of Parliament’s giant clock. With saws, rope, and pulleys, they have been made to surrender their positions to newer figures. They have done their duty. They were, the masons said, not as stable as they had been. Smoke, fog, storms, and the booms of Big Ben had left their mark—each year the queer beasts listened to every one of the 407,340 notes, and 1,160 more each leap year. The now griffons which beg from the corners of the clock are part of a general decoration of the Houses of Parliament, which has caused them to be surrounded with scaffolding from end to end for some time now. The figures will probably have a longer session than their, ancient counterparts, for they are made of a stone- which it is said will not crumble.
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Evening Star, Issue 21634, 1 February 1934, Page 6
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184GARGOYLES PULLED DOWN Evening Star, Issue 21634, 1 February 1934, Page 6
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