The Olympic Cauldron was unveiled to the world last Friday (July 27) when it was lit by seven young British athletes at Danny Boyle's spectacular Ceremony in front of a worldwide television audience estimated at one billion.

Last night, the Olympic Flame was taken from the Cauldron and placed in a special lantern as it was moved to the south end of the Olympic Stadium as an echo of the Cauldron location at Wembley during the London 1948 Games.

It will next become visible to the world when the athletics competition begins on Friday (August 3), while the Olympic Bell, the world's largest harmonically-tuned bell that was made for the Games, has been moved into storage.

It is expected that the Olympic Park will become the permanent home for the Bell following the Games.

Austin Playfoot lights the Olympic Cauldron during a ceremony at the London 2012 Olympic Stadium

After the Cauldron was moved, the Olympic Flame was taken out of the lantern and relit by London 2012 Olympic Torchbearer Austin Playfoot via an Olympic Torch.

Playfoot was invited to relight the Cauldron following his role as a Torchbearer for London 1948, when he carried the Olympic Flame from the Horse and Groom pub in Merrow to the Municipal Offices in Guildford.

He was then nominated as a London 2012 Olympic Torchbearer by Guildford and Godalming Athletic Club, where he has spent 40 years as an athletics track judge, and earlier this month he had lit the Cauldron at the Torch Relay Evening Celebration event in Guildford.

"It was an honour to be asked to perform this important task of relighting the Cauldron in its resting position," said Playfoot.

"When I ran with the Olympic Flame in Guildford I never thought I would get this close to the Cauldron, it brought me to tears when it lit up.

"It will be an incredible inspiration to the competing athletes here at the heart of the Olympic Park in the Stadium."

Thomas Heatherwick (second right) during the Olympic Torch Procession at the Cass Sculpture Foundation in Chichester

The Cauldron itself, which was designed by Thomas Heatherwick, is made up of 204 steel pipes and individually designed copper petals inscribed with the competing nation's names.

At the end of the Games, each team will take their petal home meaning the London 2012 Cauldron will cease to exist.

"There is the precedent of the 1948 Games of the Cauldron set within the stadium, to one side with the spectators, and with the technology we now have that didn't exist in 1948 it can be shared with everyone in the Olympic Park with screens," said Heatherwick.

"We felt that sharing it with the screens reinforced the intimacy within it, if it had been a huge beacon lifted up in the air it would have had to be bigger, and would have somehow not met the brief that we discussed with Danny Boyle of making something that was rooted in where the people are."

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