The Drum and Bell towers are located at the northern end of the central line of the Beijing inner city. There are two towers in this area. The front one is Drums Tower and the back one is the Bell Tower. The towers are magnificent and splendid. The Drum Tower was built in1272.. It is a two-story building made of wood with a height of 47 meters.

Bells and drums were musical instruments in ancient China. Later they were used to tell time and became watches for the officials and common people as well.

IN Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty, the towers were the timing center of Beijing. The bells were beaten every morning. and the Drums were beaten every evening. In the Qing Dynasty, the hours were marked at night beginning at 7:00 p.m., a procedure that was popularly called "setting the watch." The sound can be heard miles away. Although the Bell and Drum Towers have lost their function of telling time (The function was completely lost in 1924 when the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty was forced to leave the Forbidden City), you can still hear the rings of these ancient timepieces even now.

In the 1980s, after restoration the Bell and Drum Towers were opened to tourists.