The Bell and Drum Towers are a group of ancient buildings located at the northern end of Beijing's central axis. They are located at the northern end of Di'anmenwai Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing and both are national key cultural relics protection units. The two towers are placed longitudinally, with a majestic looking. The Bell and Drum Tower served as the time-reporting center of the capitals of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. The Bell and Drum Tower consist of the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower, which echo each other and perform their respective duties.

The Bell and Drum Tower is a public pavilion used to tell the time in ancient China. The bell and drum were originally ancient musical instruments and were used to tell the time later. The ancient Chinese Bell and Drum Tower originated in the Han Dynasty. According to historical records, in the Han Dynasty, there was a system of morning drums and evening bells that "beating drums in the morning to rouse people, and ringing bells at night to rouse people's breath". Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, was prosperous. It implemented the Li-fang(community in the Tang Dynasty) system, that is, every single Li-fang was seen as a unit. Each li-fang is surrounded by walls, and doors were set up on four or two sides, which are opened regularly. On the Chengtianmen Gate, the main gate of the palace complex, bells, and drums were set up. As the timing center of the whole city, the gates of li - fangs and palaces are opened according to the sound of the bell and drum. In the Yuan Dynasty, the bell tower and the drum tower were also built in the Dadu (now Beijing), north of the palace complex.

Drum Tower

The Beijing Drum Tower, facing south, is a wooden pavilion with double eaves and three drops of water, with a total height of 46.7m. The building is located on a 4-meter-high brick platform, with a length of about 56m from east to west and a width of about 33m from north to south. The platform is surrounded by walls.

Beijing Drum Tower has two functional floors and a hidden structure in the middle. It is five rooms wide, three rooms long, and has a corridor surrounding it. It is an arched structure, with three arched doors at the front and back, two on the left and right, and a pair of stone lions in front of the south gate. There is a door in the northeast corner of the platform, and there are 69 stone steps in the doorway, from which you can enter.

There is roof an East Asian hip-and-gable roof atop the Drum Tower with the gray tubed tile, green glazed tiles trimmings, and multiple eaves. Roof charms are installed at both ends of the main ridge. The surrounding area is sealed with wooden beadboard. The lower eaves are sloping roofs. The five little walking beasts headed by the lion were placed on each roof but they are now replaced with the seven little beasts headed by the immortal.

The interior is covered with square bricks, and the exterior eaves are decorated with six-square latticed doors and windows. Outside the upper floor, there is a corridor with wooden railings and pillar-supported eaves at the four corners.

On the second floor of the Drum Tower, there was originally one main drum and twenty- four group drums. Now only one main drum is left for exhibition purposes.

Bell Tower

The Bell Tower is about 100m north of the Drum Tower. It was originally the central pavilion of Wanning Temple in the Yuan Dynasty. In the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420), it was rebuilt together with the Drum Tower and became the Bell Tower, but it was destroyed again soon after. It was rebuilt and completed two years later in the tenth year of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1745). This time, to prevent fires, the building is all masonry. The Bell Tower was once used as an office by the Beijing Air Defense Command and was returned after the 1980s.

The bell tower covers an area of about 6,000㎡and is 47.95m in height, with multiple eaves on its top. There are arched doors on all four sides of the base of the ground floor, and there are 75 stone steps inside the main building, which can lead to the second floor. The main building is three rooms wide, with black glazed tiles on the top and green trimmings covering the roof, and a white marble Buddhist-style base on the bottom for support. There is an arched door on each side, and a carved stone window on the left and right of the door, surrounded by a stone guardrail.

Address: Di'anmenwai Street, Dongcheng District, Chaoyang District, Beijing