Church bells

You could always move next to a mosque! The call to prayer is 5 times a day rather than a couple of times a week

I think it could easily be if it is like our church - a lot of people turn up for practice (can see that from the number of cars parked there), so I presume that it isn't the same people ringing non-stop, but people swapping around and taking turns. It still adds up to many hours of continuous bell ringing to be heard from outside.

Don‘t believe in religion personally but I love hearing church bells

Really? Just because you can tolerate it doesn't make it universally tolerable. What about drunken fans shouting slogans or singing rugby songs, for instance?

For another example, how about people living under flight paths near airports. Should the airlines modify their behaviour?

Ringers can't just go along and ring randomly for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning. They need to learn how to ring, and they need to practise. Given that most people like hearing them, why should they stop for the benefit of a few people, most of whom could avoid the noise perfectly easily if they make the effort?

Yes. Literally ten people on this thread have told me this. I only stayed the one night, didn't really have time to check, I feel sorry for anyone who lives nearby.

Did you raise a noise complaint 🤔

That was a clock, not the church bells.

If you are accusing a desperate woman, at her lowest point, who is in a refuge, of 'griping' and needing to 'get a grip' or telling her 'simply move', or buy a house in a location if her choice, then you are clueless. Such cluelessness can only have come from a life without adversity. A life of privilege, certainly compared to OP's

OP isn't in a house. She's in a refuge.
Why not read the thread, before commenting?

I don't know the bell ringers, so couldn't say how many hours each was doing, or whether it was more than one group, perhaps from out of the immediate area. But, I do know that each New Year's Day, they rang for 6 hours. Yes, there were short pauses.
I also know that I didn't wrap up, wrap up my child, make up flasks and wander around the meadow for hours on end, to escape a noise I had imagined. It wasn't a whole family hallucination. It happened.

Shifnal practice for 1.5 hours on on Thursday evenings and ring for 45 minutes before Sunday services

http://www.sacbr.org.uk/Towers/Shifnal/Shifnal.html

I doubt that was bell ringing as talked about here. That would be chimes associated with the clock, like Big Ben.

My DD and I stayed in the St Paul's youth hostel which is, yes, next to St Paul's Cathedral. They do offer free earplugs as the clock chimes the quarter and the hour 24h. I'm not complaining about a historic monument - it took me back in fact to my childhood Christmases when we stayed at my grandfather's who lived in the Old Vicarage which was, you guessed it, next to the village church and it did chime hourly.
And no, nobody is getting up to ring it every hour!

Clearly written by someone who doesn't have a clue about bell ringing.

Ringers don't ring 'music' they ring methods, or patterns. It requires adjusting the speed of the bell to what the other bells are doing, hand eye coordination, a good memory, listening skills to get striking right, and logic to work out what to do when calls are made (changes to the pattern). It takes years to become a good ringer while practicing at least once a week as well as ringing for church on Sundays. It isn't just yanking at random on a rope, and if that is what you are hearing then clearly the ringers in your area are only ringing for half an hour on a Sunday.

Change ringing is one of the few things that is solely British - you only find it in a Britain and a few places that were former British colonies. It has been around for about 400 years and is part of our heritage and tradition that is dying out as ringers are aging out of being able to ring and younger ringers are not taking their places.

The tower I ring at has baffles to reduce the noise of the ringing and we have a simulator that allows people to learn to ring without inflicting a hideous clanging on the surrounding neighbourhood. Maybe the OP should investigate what is going on and ask if anything like that can be done.

We get many more complaints when we have to cancel a practice or the clock isn’t working than we ever do about the ringing (1 in 10 years).

That was a clock not the bells

You’ve got three options:

1. move
2. learn to love it
3. sabotage the bell ropes.

I am sorry they make you feel like this.

'If you're so concerned about people's sleep and peace and quiet, would you say the same things about, for instance, sports venues? If you live near one of those you will regularly have to put up with noisy crowds. Should places like Wimbledon, Twickenham, Old Trafford "modify their behaviour"?'

That is a different kind of noise though. Traffic, crowds etc all tolerable. Bells ringing aren't just a background white noise type of thing they are absolutely intrusive. Half an hour on a Sunday morning at the most should more than suffice.

Must admit I once stayed in Shifnal next to a church and the bells went off hourly, even overnight. That seemed excessive.

Actually, bellringers are pretty considerate. Practice times are usually negotiated with the church concerned who will be very aware of the neighbours. People on here have mentioned practice going on till 10 pm, but that's unusual; most groups practice once a week for around two hours at most, between around 7 and 9, which isn't likely to bother medics on night shifts. In any event, people are rarely left with no choice but to live near a church with bells.

If you're so concerned about people's sleep and peace and quiet, would you say the same things about, for instance, sports venues? If you live near one of those you will regularly have to put up with noisy crowds. Should places like Wimbledon, Twickenham, Old Trafford "modify their behaviour"?

Are you a local resident, have you complained? Surely practise should be for an hour ending no later than 7pm out of consideration for others.

If it's practice, it won't be continuous ringing.

No-one can get a tune out of bells because they're so big and heavy, unless they're tunes which happen to match the notes on consecutive bells. See the explanation at 23.57 yesterday.

Yes, practice is vital for learning and advancement, so that Sunday ringing doesn’t sound awful and there are ringers for the future. It’s not something you can learn at home and just have a go at on a Sunday,

Learning to ring is incredibly hard and takes years. Not having practices would be like sending someone who has just got their provisional licence out to drive on their own on a motorway.

Do bell ringers actually have to practice once or twice a week or is it just a fun activity for them? I get they might have to practice occasionally but it sounds like it's more about doing a fun activity with friends.

I think it sounds like a lot of bell ringers don't care about their neighbours and feel they have the right to make a lot of noise. No one is denying that church bells can be very noisy. Do bell ringers really think their practicing is more important than other peoples sleep or peace and quiet.

My son and DIL are medics and work insane hours with a lot of nights, they would be stuffed if they lived close to a church. I wouldn't feel comfortable if I was a bell ringer if I knew I was causing other people to loose sleep.

I wonder how many churches bell ringers have modified their behavior over the years and how many have carried on as they always have.