The landmark clock tower containing Big Ben at

Britains Palace of Westminster, is tilting,2 while media reports said the mother of all parliaments was slipping into the River Thames,3 raising fears over its future.

The 96-metre tall clock tower, which houses the bell originally nicknamed Big Ben, leans about 46 cm to the left of its peak.4

A construction expert who worked on the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy and a multi-storey carpark under the houses of parliament in central London,5 said there was nothing to worry about, and it would take years to reach an angle of concern.

Professor John Burland of Imperial College London also said work on the underground Jubilee6 train line in the 1990s had not caused dramatic movement, while a spokesman for the commission said the tilt could have existed since its construction in 1859.

The lean which is just visible to the naked eye had “been there for years,”Burland said. “When I first started work on the carpark it was obvious that it was leaning,” he told BBC radio. “It was probably developed at a very early stage because theres no cracking in the cladding and we think it probably leant while they were building it and before they put the cladding on.7 That was a long time ago and buildings do lean a little bit.”

He also dismissed concern in the media that parliament was slipping into the Thames, while the commissions spokesman denied the walls around the palace were suffering from a particularly bad subsidence8 problem causing Big Ben to lean. The current building, which houses the upper and lower chambers9 as well as the offices of some lawmakers, was built after its medieval predecessor was largely destroyed by fire in 1834 and has required constant maintenance.10

1. Big Ben: 大本鐘（倫敦英國議會大廈鐘樓上的大鐘）；parliament:（由上議院與下議院組成的）英國議會。

2. landmark: 地標(biāo)；Palace of Westminster:（英國議會）威斯敏斯特宮，又稱議會大廈，是英國議會上下兩院的所在地；tilt: 傾斜。

3. slip into: 滑進(jìn)；River Thames:（英國英格蘭南部的）泰晤士河。

4. house: v. 庇護(hù)，給……提供場所；nickname: v. 起綽號；peak: 頂點(diǎn)。

5. the leaning tower of Pisa:（意大利）比薩斜塔；multi-storey:（建筑物）多層的；carpark: 停車場。

6. jubilee:（尤指50周年、25周年等具有特殊意義的）周年紀(jì)念。

7. crack: 破裂；cladding: 覆面（建筑物外壁、容器或引擎表面的保護(hù)層）；leant: lean的過去分詞，意為“傾斜的”。

8. subsidence: 下沉。

9. upper and lower chambers chamber: 指上下議院。

10. medieval: 中世紀(jì)的；predecessor: 前身；maintenance: 維護(hù)，保養(yǎng)。