London The chimes of Big Ben, the tower clock that is an iconic image of London, stopped on Saturday for retuning and maintenance work and will remain silent for over 24 hours, the longest period in more than two decades.
The clock, located in a tower of Britain's Parliament, the Palace of Westminster, became fully operational in 1859.
It was stopped on Saturday after the 1230 hrs IST chimes and is not expected to be back in action until 2130 hrs on Sunday. A spokesman for the clock's maintenance team said engineers would be testing for cracks or damage.
"There is a lot of strain on that clock and obviously we're quite concerned that it's strong enough to maintain it," Mike McGann from the House of Commons said.
"There is nothing actually wrong, it is a routine maintenance that happens every 15 or 20 years," he added.
Big Ben, a focus of celebrations in England at New Year's Eve, stopped in May for about 90 minutes, possibly due to the hot weather.
It was silent for longest in 1983, when the clock's hands were removed for maintenance work.
Engineers will carry out a thorough inspection of the clock, while the rubber hammer buffers on three of the four quarter-hour bells and the hour bell will be routinely replaced.
Engineers will also need to retune the bells, which could take several hours.
The work is part of a maintenance review intended to form the basis of a new five-yearly maintenance regime to ensure the clock's reliability.
Big Ben is renowned for its accuracy, surviving a dozen attacks by German bombers during World War II, when it continued to mark the time within one and a half seconds of Greenwich Mean Time.
It has been late on occasion. In 1962, snow accumulation caused the clock to ring in the new year 10 minutes late, and in 1976 it stopped, when a piece of its machinery broke down.
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