to be completely fed up with the church bells ringing on the hour through the night.

[jollyma]

I live in a village about 500 metres away from a church. Since the windows have been open this summer we have heard the bells ring through the night. When they ring at 5am they disturb ds2 and it is then morning in our house.

I bumped into the vicar today and asked him why this had started to happen and he says it always has "church bells always ring on the hour". I am tired and grumpy about this and feel like going and ringing his doorbell at 5am. AIBU?

Yes I like the sound of trains - something nice about it, hard to pin it down.
I don't actually I don't live near a train line though, and would be driven mad if I lived near our local station as there is an automated announcement every other second - usually advising all the non-existant people on the empty tumbleweed-strewn Platform 1 to stand back as the next train does not stop here etc...Plus apologies for delays. And announcements as to the number of carriages to expect (generally wrong.)

No can imagine it would be hateful to live near a station - thankfully I am miles away from mine.

It is very comforting when a train wakes you up at night, god knows what it is, perhaps it is the feeling that you are not alone in the world.

Also, when the wind is in the right direction I can hear Gloucester cathedral bells, which are magical. They habve a beautiful muffled tone. Those bells have been ringing for hundreds of years, it is lovely to think of the same tunes ringing across Gloucester as those which would have been heard in medieval times.

When I stayed with friends who live near a train line I used to like lying in bed hearing the trains as it really reinfoced tha fact that I was able to lie in bed and not have to go anywhere!

Our local scout camp is right next to a train line, it frightens the life out of you when the night freight trains come through, sounds like they are heading for your tent!

Yes the night freight trains make the house shake.

Does wake me up sometimes.

We get the church bells ding-donging the time 24 hrs a day. On the hour, on the half hour and a little ding I am fairly sure although don't hold me to it sometimes on the 15 minute (unless I'm hearing things ). I am reasonably sure that bell ringers cannot be doing it so it must be some sort of machinery?

I like it.

When I notice it, that is. Don't you find that after some time, a noise stops registering?

Funny thing is, some of these modern mechanised bells are so loud that they are hard to ignore. Old bells tend to have a soft, mellow sound that you barely notice. But some new bells, with the mechanisation and amplification, are very loud and intrusive. Some sound just like your doorbell. Anyone like to hear their doorbell ringing every 15 minutes through the night?!

I lived for a year and a half in a flat that was a few houses down from a church which rang every hour. I got used to it and missed it when I moved house.

Often I would find the bell on the hour would snap me out of procrastination. I did sleep though the early morning chimes. Just chill out would be my advice.

I agree with the above posters about people who move near churches that have been tolling for hundreds of years, should move somewhere else. Simple traditions are often worth a little adjustment, otherwise everywhere ends up exactly the same.

Re-reading this thread confirms that there is definitely a tendency for ASBO vicars to lie about the length of time their bells have been donging. My research has found this, too. In one case, the intrusive loud bells only dated back a few years but the vicar lied and said they'd always been like that. NOT! Yes there had been bells in that church for hundreds of years but our ancestors did not think it coolor necessaryto have them dong 24/7. They had better things to do than listen to bells and not many churches had mechanised systems until recently. Victims of ASBO vicars, awake! And find out if they are lying.

YABU. Striking clocks (on the hour or in quarter-hour measures) have been around for hundreds of years. What has not been around has been an automated system which means someone doesn't have the chore of winding the clock every day or so.

You get used to clock-chimes (mostly not heard anyway because of closed windows), just like you get used to trains, or lorries changing gear if you live on a busy main road or near a roundabout.

As for bell-ringing practice, they have to practice sometime. And it's one night a week and children won't always be at the age of going to bed at 7.30. Three of my children have now learnt how to do bell-ringing and it's great.

To Dandydan: Nah, in the case I am thinking of, the chiming clock had an automated mechanism but the chime was so quiet it couldn't be heard beyond the church lawn. Then ASBO vicar "restored" the clock and we get... amplified doorbell effect every 15 minutes day and night, which is so loud it can be heard over half the town. Mechanisation + amplification = bell hell.

Similarly, the "restoration" of the hourly bells and peal. Quiet and unobtrusive before, unbearable now. As for bell practice "one night a week", try 3-4 times per week for hours...

NB If you haven't heard the volume, frequency and duration of some ASBO vicar's bells, you can have no clue how bad it can be. I had never even noticed church bells anywhere before hearing these ones...

Haven't read it all but the OP made me feel concerned for the poor old belringers having to stay up all night every night to ring the bells

If you mean that the clock is striking, which I assume you do, then you ABU. You are going to ask them to stop the clock? Seriously???

Do you have ishoooos with big ben? for instance?

bonkers/

Oh my goodness I thought people like the op were an urban myth.
I'm in complete laughable shock that this is for real.
No they cannot stop them ringing at 5am. Thats the call to get up for a lot of people. round here the farm workers are up at that time.
Have you complained about any tractors/ muckspreading/horse neighing etc too yet

Of course YANBU. It would be noise pollution if it was someone's house or business, and it is noise pollution when it is a church. They should observe the same environmental health rules as everyone else and programme it to only sound in daylight hours.

The fact that some people like the sound - or like it during the day - doesn't change that. Nor is the fact that it's only recently started to bother you. You and your kids have every right not to have your sleep disturbed.

Bronze - suggestion that the 5 o clock bell is necessary to wake people up for the fields is ridiculous. They can buy an alarm clock.

My parents' church has a full set of bells and they are rung regularly. Someone moved into a cottage next to the church. Their DD developed ME and began to find loud noises hard to deal with. Diocese was very sympathetic and offered to cut back the times the bells rang - just one practice a week, only one service on a Sunday, plus weddings. But nope.... they wanted them stopped altogether - no compromise.

ours are also 4 times an hour. I have always lived in villages close to the church and i love the sound.

on a sunday, weddings or chirstenings they ring for long periods and it is lovely.

When a church bell's chimes are "restored", it is not simply down to an "ASBO vicar" - a term I find sweeping and offensive - as all decisions (including finding the amount of money required for this) are down to the church's council - the PCC - not the vicar's own personal whim.

Our local church lost its quarter-chimes a few years ago due to mechanical breakdown in the clock and local people (a good number of whom were not church-goers) asked for them to be restored - which they were.

Also, as these systems are expensive, it is not every church that can "set the machine" to not chime during the night. Many church clock chimes still work on the principle of someone climbing the tower to wind the clock every other day, and cannot be stopped and started so easily.

Would people consider stopping Big Ben and the other bells in the tower chiming because they lived nearby?

Before anyone criticises the OP for minding about her local bell noise, consider 3 things: volume, duration, frequency. Unless you have lived in constant proximity to bell noise that matches hers in those 3 aspects, you can have no idea if she is being unreasonable.

Noise from church bells varies hugely--as a parallel, think of the difference between hearing the distant sound of children playing in a school playground a few times per week versus having ten children yell in your ear every 15 minutes, day and night.

And no, you don't have to live near a church to be affected these days since the amplification/"restoration" effect crept in--some bells have been made hugely louder and people up to mile away get noise way above the levels that are expected in environmental health guidelines to wake people up and give rise to complaints.

So the argument, "You moved next to a church so what can you expect?" sadly no longer applies.

Also a lot of folk complaining about church bells were there before the ASBO vicar "restored" the bells and were horrified when they experienced the entirely new noise they are expected to put up with. No one consulted them before this material change to their environment and house value.

As for the "move away" argument, might be OK for the wealthy but many people have to live where they live because of what they can afford. If you're in social housing, the choice is further restricted.

BLBL- here I often have to really concentrate to work out if its the sheep calling for their lambs or one of the children crying in their sleep. The church is the other side of the sheep field.
I hung my washing out during bell ringing practice yesterday (did wonder if it was a wedding at first as so early) it was a lovely sound amongst the sheep and the birds (I tune out the road)

I agree asbo vicar is offensive.

Our church clock chimes through the night. The mechanism is very old and very simple and is either on or off. I live about 100 meters away from the church and its no problem.

I am a firm believer in traditional and subscribe to the principle that they were there long before you were and you should learn to love them.

YABU.

I live quite close to the village church and it doesn't chime the hour at night. As far as I know, quite a few church clock chimes are silenced at night, for obvious reasons! So I sympathise, but I'm surprised you haven't noticed it before.

Unless the vicar's telling porkies and they've only just started, of course!

not sure if you're being unreasonable or not, but it would annoy the hell out of me, too.

"they were there long before you were"

No, in a lot of cases, they were not. Not so loud, not so frequent, not all through the night.... as I've said several times. An equivalent would be if a factory opened near you and started sounding a klaxon every 15 minutes through the night at the same noise level. Would that be acceptable? If so, I'll get out my ghetto blaster and play music in the street every night. After all, I love my music, and it is traditional music, so everyone else must love it too, no?

Was the church there first? If so it's like buying a house next to a pub and complaining about all the noise on the street at 11pm.