A carillon is a percussion instrument which is made up of no fewer than 23 cast bronze bells. The bells are hung suspended, and are played using a keyboard like control called a clavier. (Not to be confused with the German keyboard instrument.) The clavier controls clappers which strike the bells, as well as having pedals to modify the sound.

It's essentially a huge set of church bells turned into a musical instrument.

What we are looking at obviously isn't technically a carillon, but rather the building which contains one. Still, the name National Carillon has stuck to the building as well as its contents for convenience's sake.

The bells, of which there were originally 53, were donated by the British Government in 1970 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Canberra's founding. They weigh anything from 7 kg to 6 tonnes. Before they could be installed there needed to be somewhere to put them, and a limited architectural competition was opened in 1967. It was won by the Western Australian firm of Cameron Chisholm Nicol. They designed what we see here; a 150 metre (160') tall set of three concrete towers representing the British government, the Australian government and the ACT government. It was designed in the Brutalist style, as was the fashion in the late 60's, and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 26 April 1970.

You may be aware that the lake in central Canberra, Lake Burley Griffin, is an artificial lake which was created by damming the Molonglo River. Artificial lakes will often have artificial islands, and in this case three were created in the suburb of Parkes. The largest of these was gazetted in 1963 with the name Aspen Island (derived from the tree of that name), on which stands the National Carillon. That was the name it had when I first shot and posted this image. In the dying days of the Morrison government (early 2022), the decision was made to rename it Queen Elizabeth II Island in honour of her platinum jubilee year.

In 2003/2004, the Carillon was upgraded with an extra 2 bells taking the number to 55, which it was when I wrote the original commentary. In 2009 a further two were added, bringing the number to 57.

There's a passenger lift within the tallest shaft, or if you're feeling adventurous you can climb up the outside like Batman. (No, of course I just made that part up... unless someone actually was Batman in which case I... er, I mean he, that is, whoever Batman is, might be able to manage it.) The problem is that there's no indication that the public can go up there. At the time of writing this updated commentary (December 2022) the Carillon is, in any case, closed for renovations.