Church Bells?

[Hoplikeabunny]

I have recently moved house, and my new house is one road along from the village church. I have lived this close to churches before, and have never experienced this, but the church I live near to now seem to ring the church bells at odd times of the night?! Every Tuesday and Thursday they ring the bells constantly from 8pm-10pm (it seems like wedding bells practice or something?), which is a bit annoying, and later than I think is acceptable really, but ultimately not the end of the world, although they have woken my DS up a few times. However, they also ring them really late, and in the early hours of the morning. For example, last night at 11pm they rang (rung...not sure which word is correct here!) them 11 times at 11pm. Then on Monday they rang them at midnight 12 times. I have also sleepily heard them in the small hours of the morning a couple of times.

I don't particularly mind, it's not the worst noise in the world, but it just seems odd, and is a bit annoying?! Also, for some reason church bells at midnight feels a bit creepy, I don't even know why! It is a bit frustrating as my 2yo doesn't sleep that well, and it has woken him up before, but i guess this is my issue.

Am I being unreasonable to find this a bit odd, or is it standard practice in village churches? Maybe i'm just not accustomed to village life yet!

I appreciate that in the grand scheme of things, this is a non-issue!

If it isn't chiming throughout the day, then it isn't a clock and is a bit weird.

I'd been listening out today, and I haven't heard it since midnight last night?! So I'm back to being confused about what it actually is chiming for! I may need to ask someone when I'm out walking my dog, someone must know!

*I've

Eleven times at 11 o clock, 12 times at midnight?! Well, duhh 'course they will
Church bells ring the time. Used to live near the village one growing up, and they'd dong the time throughout the night (as well as quarter to and half past the hour)

Bell ringing 8-10 is normal.
The church near us has a clock, it goes quieter at night, but sometimes the mechanism isn't set properly so you get loud ringing at night. I don't notice it in the day as other things are going on, but sometimes hear the muffled chimes at night because it's much quieter.

We got woken up once in a new house by the milk float going past, we got the windows replaced promptly.

There are some odd people on this thread. Comparing a centuries old tradition with honking a car horn in an anti-social fashion? What rot.

You can't expect to move somewhere and then dictate established traditions changed to suit you. Thank goodness the op has more sense than some.

Op, you probably can't hear the bells so much during the day due to the usual day time noise or the wind being in the wrong direction. If you really want to check stand outside the church on the hour and see if they chime.

All the rest sounds normal, bells for services, bells for weddings and bells for practice. Also sometimes for celebrations like a new royal baby, a centenary, VE Day anniversary etc etc.

I like about 300 yards from a church and can rarely hear the bells at all above them traffic and the planes.

Very odd I think. Surely people in the church need to sleep.

The clock chimes are automatic like a cuckoo clock or a grandfather clock but just on a much bigger scale. Nobody is popping out to ring them all through the night!

Or do you think there are people sleeping in the church who might be disturbed 80schild? Because people don't tend to sleep in the church. They sleep in the priest's house/Vicarage/Rectory nearby. Or their own home.

Some church clocks need to be wound up regularly. If someone forgets to do it they might go quiet for a while.

Would broadly agree with other posters suggesting that a weekly practice should stop at 21.00. Some however go as later as 21.30 but I have never known one later.

The chiming is clearly the church clock.

It is possible to fit sound control or have clocks adapted so that they don't chime all night but both of these cost significant amounts of money so out of reach of many impoverished PCCs.

Most towers without sound control would limit ringing in the evenings to one weekly practice with occasional extras such as a visiting band of bellringers once in a blue moon. Anything more is borderline inconsiderate but not unknown.

Now someone is getting married, bells galore this afternoon, how very dare they

Ooh lovely, wedding bells!

You'll get used to them, then you'll miss them of you move.

Yes I quite like the wedding bells actually, DS and I have been out in the garden this afternoon and they are very cheerful. Though it is making me want to go and catch a sneak peek of the bride!

I used to do bell ringing as a teen. Haven't done a full peal but did do a quarter peal. I also did weddings and a couple of times the midnight bells at Christmas.

Our church has chimes on automatic when the bells aren't being rung, with a mechanism to switch off when required. Staircase is the usual tight stone spiral, but plenty of people can get up.

The heaviest bell can be rung by one person, but two people are needed to ring the bell up or down.

I stopped in the end as other commitments took priority.

I live a few doors down from a church. Every fifteen minutes I know how much later I'm running No need to check my watch!

It's only happened once to piss me off, but they did ring continuously once for 3/4 hour. The neighbours and I were going bananas! Never did find out why. The practises are shorter and quieter! They must have been fixing it or something.

You'll get used to it. We had chimes ever 15 mins where I was brought up.

We once bought a flat next to a convent... No we didn't think about the bells - the 6:40am chimes were quite a surprise on the first day there. We didnt hear them after a while - but big ben, which you could hear on a very still and quiet night would wake me up.

I'm in central London but the church near me chimes the time every hour. I only really noticed it when up with the newborn (we'd only moved a few months before baby arrived). I find them very comforting but also a bit depressing when I was hearing them chime 4am and then 5am and I was still awake with the baby!!!

Surely it makes sense that you hear the 11pm / midnight chimes because it's silent and there are more chimes? You are more likely to hear them than say the 3pm chimes?

As a teen I lived on an island in the Mediterranean. Our house was across the street from the church. The bells were not rung English style, but rung for Mass. They were cracked. The earliest Mass was at 3.30 for the fishermen. After the first four days you no longer noticed.

And in my home Village it's perfectly acceptable for the village to come to the church service, see the bride up or down the village street, pop out and dhow her to the little children. It's the village, it's your and her community.

Oh really? Well in that case next Saturday I may go and have a little look at the bride, I do love weddings! I got married in quite a famous tourist spot, and there were literally coach loads of tourists taking pictures of me and DH, so I guess it's okay for me to take DS to the gate for a little look at the brides at the end of our road?!

This is making me want to move to a village, for the church bells and popping out to peek at the bride!

I'm another with 15 minute chimes. You really do get used to it I can go hours now without noticing them except when I can't sleep and they're taunting me!

Bell ringing through the night is unreasonable. I would say cut off at 10 at the latest unless for a specific festival. I would say something. I live near a church and have never heard them rung during the evening / night.

I rang as a child, teenager and young adult (I think we may have set some kind of record for the lowest average age for a peal, as my elder brother was the tower captain, conductor and oldest of us, and he must have been no more than 16).

I well remember an aggravated neuighbour coming in to try to stop us finishing a peal, literally 10 minutes from the end of the 3 hours. I had my back to the door, so only heard their banshee screech and my deeply polite but v stern brother saying 'madam, please stay where you are, it's dangerous to come in. We will stop in 10 minutes'.

IME, certainly at university, bellringers tended to be maths / engineering science types. Outside university, often quiet, thoughful, rather analytical people. Or a bunch of youngsters with churchgoing parents, outgrown the church choir and up for a giggle (that was us... we were all trained by a single older ringer, but when he died, we just kept the band going. When my borther left for university, a local 16 year old picked up where he left off, and i suspect is ringing there still...). When I was a young graduate who moved around quite a lot for work, it was an excellent way of integrating into new communities, as a) it is very easy to find out when practice night is and b) anyone who turmns up and says that they can ring is welcomed with open arms. Old enough for the post-ringing pint by then, too.

Heyho,

While 'humans' ringing the bells after 10 is, I agree, unreasonable except on New Year's Eve, a church clock striking is rather different. Because the bell is struck with a hammer for clock chimes, rather than swung full circle as they are by a person (at least in the English style of ringing), clock chimes are quieter as the sound is not 'thrown out' in the same way, and the actual 'hitting of the bell to make the sound' less forceful.

Please hop you did record the wedding bell peel didnt you. You sooooo lucky. Can i come and stay please, im house trained...