The bongs of Big Ben used to be a familiar sound for those out for a walk around Westminster.

That was until 2017, when the bongs stopped permanently because of conservation work.

But this week, visitors to Big Ben will once again be graced with the famous chimes as tests start before the permanent reconnection of the bells in the coming weeks.

Teams have been busy behind the scenes with ‘silent testing’, a process where the hammers are rung over a regular period to make sure all parts of the clock are running smoothly.

Parliament will soon announce a date for when Big Ben will be back to full functioning.

The bongs will be heard from this morning until 8am tomorrow morning, when they will be played intermittently to begin with before being played every hour, with the smaller bells being played every 15 minutes.

The same will then take place on Wednesday from 3pm until Thursday at 8am.

It is the first time the ‘Westminster chimes’ will have been heard for a sustained period since the conservation work started in 2017.

The clock tower itself had been covered by scaffolding for the past five years, until earlier this year when the shiny makeover was revealed.

However the bill came to a hefty and significantly over budget £80 million, with the clock’s hands being restored to their original blue, having been painted black previously to try and mask the dirt from pollution.

Work on the Elizabeth Tower (its official name because just the bell inside is called Big Ben) was originally meant to cost £29 million.

Work is also expected to be completed a year late – hopefully by the end of this year – because of the pandemic.

Big Ben also failed to chime recently to mark the start and end of the mourning period for the Queen due to an unspecified ‘technical issue’.

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