Church bells

so you’re staying temporarily in a hostel? were you housed there by the council due to homelessness and so no choice?@Isxmasoveryet

Belfries can have baffles installed to muffle the sound of the bells. This is what we have done with ours. Now we get complaints from other neighbours that they CAN'T hear the bells.

Change ringing is one of the only things that is solely a UK activity. It is only found in the UK and a very few of its former colonies. It is a pity that you value a unique part of British heritage so dismissively.

FWIW I am very grateful to the organist at our church for turning out every Sunday. I would much rather listen to him play than some recording of Songs of Praise booming along in the background.

The problem is that then no one would know how to ring the bells - I think it is a “learning on the job” skill.

After three days and 400 posts, it's not likely you'll have something useful to add based on just the OP, is it?

You should at least read the OP's updates, there's an easy See All button to allow you to do that and avoid embarrassing yourself by asking someone who is in a hostel if they'd like to swap homes.

Haha, you're calling me a massive twat for not having read all the posts (I've got a full, happy, plentiful life outside Mumsnet and rarely read the 3337 answers, just the OP question) and therefore not knowing she was living in a hostel? Anyway, it was a simple joke, a light comment to show how two different people can react differently to the same situation. Plenty of repressed anger there, sister, if a simple comment about church bells leads you to call someone a twat!

You want to live in a hostel, like the OP? I'm sure she'd love to swap homes.

Oh, I can't think of a sound I'd enjoy more, than church bells ringing near my home. Especially and old, medieval church. Can we swap homes?

I've never heard on one of those.

If it is, I can only think that they chose it because we are almost certainly the smallest village in the area with a church, so potentially fewer people to disturb. 😁

Try mindfulness. Church bells are a wonderful way to relax & feel calm.

Of course. My response was to a pp who suggested that she chose to live there.

It sounds as if you live near a ringing centre. There are very few of those.

I doubt that anyone is locked into the hostel for the relatively short period that bells are ringing, nor are they prevented from using earmuffs or noise cancelling headphones.

So shall we disband most of our orchestras because we already have recordings of most of the music written so far?

The fact that a very few people are disturbed really can't be a reason for bringing an end to a tradition like this that plenty of people want to keep going. After all, it's not as if it isn't pretty easy to avoid the sound if you don't like it.

One of the bell ringers has told me that they had a big recruitment drive some time ago, and as a result of that they actually have a large group of would-be bell ringers.

Many are coming from other parishes. I have no idea if they also practice in those other parishes too, but believe me, they do practise here every single Saturday and for several hours. I live just across the road from the church, close enough for it to be nigh on impossible not to know when they are there.

If the OP is still following this, I just want to say that, although I disagree with you about the bell ringing, I understand how you're not necessarily in a good place (literally and figuratively) at the moment.
I remember my dh pointing out a drilling noise from nearby. Until then, I hadn't noticed it, but then I couldn't NOT hear it, and found it very annoying.
Look after yourself.

I agree Calliecarpa. I have yet to come across a tower that practices in the evening for longer than 1.5 hours and usually they finish at 9.00 precisely because they don't want to annoy neighbours late at night with ringing. Towers also ring for about 30 - 45 minutes before a service (the whole point being to let people know a service is taking place) so unless the OP's church is having services throughout the morning the bells would only ring once or twice if they have two services.

I see the OP hasn't been back to the thread for more than 48 hours since making the dubious claim that the church bells ring '8am to 11 every Sunday morning' and '7pm to 10 pm every Thursday'. Why would the bells be ringing all the way through the Sunday morning services? Think someone's stretching the truth here a bit.

Fwiw, when I rang, the cut off point was a strictly enforced 9pm.

It's not "all that disturbing practising", it's usually 1.5h one night a week with a hard cut off at 9. Churches need to get on with the neighbours like everyone else.

Well, what is 'excessive'? Very subjective I think.
Especially as several posters are making frankly unbelievable claims about how long ringing goes on.

I'm all for tolerance but excessive noise is something we should not have to tolerate.

I love hearing the bells. When they practice in the summer it is so nice to sit out having a drink and getting mesmerised by them.

The op lives in a hostel. I'd imagine choice didn't come into it.

I'm not in the slightest bit religious, but I absolutely say you are being unreasonable. I take it the church is an old one, as I have never seen any new ones with bells, which means you chose to live near a church, knowing full well that it has a bell and it would highly likely be rung!