This brick and stone Bell Tower has two floors: there is an arched door on all four sides of the tower on the first floor, and you can go up to the second floor through stone stairs. An arched door was also built on the four sides of the second floor. Additionally, there is a stone window on each side of the four doors. Hanging on an eight-square wooden frame of the second floor, the bell in this tower is the largest and heaviest in China. It is 7.02 meters high including the pendants, with a weight of 63 tons (138,891 pounds). The bell was made of copper, and you can hear its round and clear sound from far away. The two 2-meter-long wooden logs hanging sideward are used to ring the bell.

Located 100 meters south to the bell tower, the drum tower was placed on a 4-meter-high stone and brick base. It is 46.7 meters high, a little bit lower than the bell tower that is 47.9 meters high. This tower is also a two-storey building; the first floor contains the China Committee for the Promotion of the Minority Art. The second floor contains the exhibition area. Originally, there was one big drum and 24 smaller drums, but only the big drum remains. The method of beating the drum is to beat it quickly for 18 times and then slowly for 18 times. Altogether there are three rounds and 108 tollings. People knock the bell and the drum 108 times, because 108 times represent one year in ancient times.

The area of the bell and drum towers has been flourishing since the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), when they were just standing behind the imperial palace. It was the busy downtown district there then, full of storefronts and businesses. Thanks to the further developing of the businesses, the street in front of the drum tower became the busiest shopping street in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. During the Republican Period of China (1911-1949), many have-nots (impoverished people), along with merchants selling handcrafted items (handicraftsmen) and vendors selling snacks and local food items (snack stands) swarmed the place between the bell and drum towers, which attracted people from all walks of life at that time.

Telling time by ringing the bell and beating the drum was abolished after Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. Since the New Year's Eve of 1990, the sweet sound of the bell that had disappeared for a long time began to ring out in Beijing. Being drowsy for nearly a century, the drum was also beaten again on the New Year's Eve of 2001. It has been beaten four times a day, for 15 minutes at a time since January 1st in 2002. From then on, every New Year Eve, the drum is beaten with the bell 108 times to send a blessing to the people.