Westminster to Piccadilly: the places behind the levels

The Play listing for Big Ben Blocks describes ten Adventure levels “from Westminster to Piccadilly”. It does not give the names of the levels in between, so this post does not guess at them. It sticks to the two places the listing does name and to the city the game is themed on: what stands at each end, when it was built, and how the two fit together on a map.

Westminster: a tower built after a fire

The Palace of Westminster, home of the UK Parliament, burned down on 16 October 1834. Most of the medieval palace was lost. The rebuilding was designed by Charles Barry, with Augustus Pugin responsible for much of the Gothic detail, and work began in 1840. It was a long project, and the clock tower at the northern end was among the last parts to be finished.

That tower is the one the game is named after. It was completed in 1859, the same year the Great Clock started running. It stands about 96 m high, and it was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Strictly, “Big Ben” is the nickname of the Great Bell inside it, as the post on why Big Ben is a bell explains. The other end of the palace has a taller tower: the Victoria Tower is about 98.5 m, a couple of metres above the clock tower. Few people notice, because the clock draws the eye.

If you want the clock itself, the post on the Great Clock and its pennies works through the pendulum arithmetic.

Piccadilly: a circus that is really a junction

At the other end, “circus” has its older Latin meaning of a circle: a round open space where streets meet. Piccadilly Circus was laid out in 1819 as part of John Nash's Regent Street, a route intended to link the Prince Regent's home at Carlton House with Regent's Park. It has been a junction ever since, and its curved corners and bright signs are what most visitors recognise.

The statue on the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain was unveiled in 1893, in memory of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, a reformer known for his work on factory conditions and the treatment of children. The figure is almost always called Eros. It was intended to represent his brother Anteros, a symbol of selfless love, but the popular name stuck. It was also an early use of aluminium for a large cast sculpture, which was unusual at the time.

The name Piccadilly itself is usually traced to “piccadills”, a type of stiff collar or frill. The common account is that a tailor who sold them in the 17th century gave his house, and then the street, its name. Treat that as the standard explanation rather than a settled one, as with the origin of “Big Ben”.

How the two ends compare

Put the dates side by side and some small pieces of arithmetic fall out:

• Piccadilly Circus (1819) is 74 years older than the fountain (1893), and 40 years older than the finished tower (1859).
• The tower was completed 25 years after the 1834 fire (1859 − 1834).
• From 1859 to 2026 the Great Clock has been in place for 167 years.

On the map, the two places are close. Piccadilly Circus is a little over a kilometre from the Elizabeth Tower in a straight line, and the walk is somewhat longer than that. The usual route passes Whitehall and Trafalgar Square, so the short walk from Westminster to Piccadilly takes in some of the best-known streets in London.

What the game takes from this

Big Ben Blocks uses London as a theme, and the listing says its Adventure levels run along that route. What it actually asks of you is block-puzzle skill. Each level has a fixed starting board and piece sequence, so you can repeat a level and try a different placement, and the goals are about score, line-clearing and combos. You also clear obstacles along the way. A level in the game is a puzzle, not a guided tour, and nothing here claims which place goes with which level.

That is worth saying plainly, because the listing leaves it open. It tells you the first and the last stop, and it does not tell you the route. If you play through, you will find out for yourself.

Numbers to keep

• The Palace of Westminster burned on 16 October 1834; Elizabeth Tower was completed in 1859.
• The tower is about 96 m high, and the Victoria Tower about 98.5 m.
• Piccadilly Circus dates from 1819; the Shaftesbury fountain from 1893.

It also connects to the game's daily reset. The Daily Challenge changes at midnight UK time, and the post on GMT, BST and when the clocks change shows what that means in other time zones.