Church bells

[Elisi]

I grew up just outside the quiet market town I live in, so I know it well, obviously. Got married, had children (the 3 absolute loves of my life) and we moved into town. Couldn't believe we'd got it at the time 😁Thing is, we live 75 yards from the church. It used to be that on occasional Saturdays someone would get married and the bells would happily ring out. Occasionally. New vicar and oh my goodness. We (our neighbours and us) all loved the Covid lockdown, 2 years of blissful peace. Those effing bells now ring every 15 minutes plus the hour. For example, at 10.59pm it will ring 4 times, plus 11 strokes. Then at 11.15pm it'll ring once. 11.30pm, twice. 11.45pm, 3 times. Midnight, 4 times plus 12. And this goes on 24hrs a day. Worse though, the effing bellringers. 3 hours between 6.30pm and 9.30pm every Tuesday, bell-ringing practice, it is absolutely deafening. Nobody's children can sleep, and they start again between 9am to 10am Sunday morning. That's not including when they have their mates over for bell-jollies, it has become an absolute living hell. Vicar has been spoken to and we've all basically been told to suck it up. AIBU to try and take this further?

I cannot understand the English I would happily bet that every single one of the commentator admonishing you for daring to complain love nowhere near a church that rings it bells as frequently.

It is clearly antisocial tonring loud bells through the night.. absolutely no-one would be happy with their neighbour getting the bugle or bagpipes out every 15mins between midnight and dawn for time-keeping purposes.

We no longer live in the middleages when clocks where a luxury and so are no longer in any way in need for church bells to ring through the night.

We live about the same distance from a church, maybe a little closer.
Ours isn’t as busy bell ringing wise
We have Fri and Saturday bell ringing practice
Twice on Sunday for services and the occasional wedding.
Sometimes there’s random ringing but I have no idea why.

We are single glazed and to be honest, we don’t hear it in the house very much. There are no trees or houses in between us to buffer the noise. We hear it but it’s not loud. But then I like it anyway.

On the hour is mad. We used to have The Angelus in Ireland rung out but that’s just 3 times a day.

I would email the local councillor to see if they can reduce the frequency.

The bells don’t ring all night, the clock chimes. I like it if I wake up in the night, and you just get used to it to the point you barely register unless you’re actually lying awake. I’d be really pissed off if some moaner moved in near our church and started trying to interfere with the clock.

I cannot understand the English I would happily bet that every single one of the commentator admonishing you for daring to complain love nowhere near a church that rings it bells as frequently.

And yet there are people on the thread who do. Have a read.

I cannot understand the English I would happily bet that every single one of the commentator admonishing you for daring to complain love nowhere near a church that rings it bells as frequently.

Nobody lives near a church that rings its bells as frequently as the OP claims. Not even the OP.

I can't answer how I got used to it, I expect after a few days I was so tired I slept through and that was that. I really don't notice them now. And I have my bedroom window open all year round.

The bells are not being rung at night. Why is everyone being so dense?

It's the clock chiming the quarter hours and the top of the hour.

Honestly, as if the bell ringers would be in the church 24 hours a day 🙄

The actual bells are rung for occasions and practice, about three times a week. Except when they do that great big long thing that goes on for hours, that is a bit annoying but in six years living here I've only heard it once. The village Facebook page was divided in the lovers and haters.

Ours start really early on a Sunday morning. It doesn’t wake me up any more. Think it did the first couple of weeks. Plus we live nearer to the church and have leaded, Ill fitting single glazed windows.

It should not make any noise at all at night no ringing, no chiming, nothing. How are you being so dense? Noone gives a flying fuck what causes it, they just know it was quiet and now it is not. So it can be quiet and should be. Plus, op was clear that it carries on until 9 30 on practice night. That is v much night for children and is definitely done by people. There is no need.

They are exactly the same where I live. Different day for practice, but it's 7.30pm to 9.30pm. The house two doors down has brought up two small children, they don't seem to have been impacted by the bells ringing or the church clock chiming.
Over the road have four boys, lived here all their lives, all seem well adjusted. Plenty of kids in the village in fact, there are two excellent schools. Noone complains about the bells or the clock chimes.

It's very common for church clocks to chime all night, Big Ben does it for god's sake.

So how you think you get to decide that a clock should not chime through the night I have no idea. But luckily, you DON'T get to decide. I'll hear the one am chime in a few moments, if I listen for it.

@Elisi

the clock and bells should not ring between say 10 and 6/7 but apart from that you are being unreasonable totally

ps the more you let this get on your nerves the more it sill so just tune them out

But 9.30 is highly unlikely and I suspect a bit of exaggeration by OP. As someone said, bellringing is knackering, both physically and mentally, especially after a day's work. It's highly unlikely that any practice goes on for more than 2 hours at most or beyond 9pm at the latest, especially in residential areas.

It varies quite a bit - with size as you say, but also depending on the design of the tower. Some even have shutters on the windows of the bell chamber, which can be closed for practice night to reduce the amount of the sound which escapes, and opened for services when the point is to be heard. I rang at one tower where closing the shutters meant the bells were only really noticeable within the churchyard (they were also quite small bells).

Here a list of bell ringing activities in one area, most don't go beyond 9pm, two go to 9.15

www.bacbr.org.uk/bedford/bedford-district-towers/bedford-district-practice-nights/

Bells sound like they are reasonable, the clock not so

I think your annoyance is reasonable if I have read the OP correctly and the bells have gone from ringing only at celebrations and practice to now ringing multiple times an hour including through the night!

@MILLYmo0se

perhaps repaired

You've misunderstood. The bells still only ring for celebrations, services and practice.

It's the clock chimes that go four times an hour. They literally go "ding dong, ding dong" at quarter past, it's around one second of sound. Then that twice at half past, then three times at quarter to, four times on the hour - then a number of strikes for the hour. It's just a clock chiming. It's seconds each time.

Ours breaks now and then, sometimes just the chimes stop, sometimes the hour striking stoos, and sometimes it all stops for a while. Then it gets repaired and starts again.

Bell ringer here.

Clock chimes - this is the every 15 minutes thing and is definitely NOT the bell ringers! Our clock chimes the hour all night. Even during covid the clock was kept going (our is still manually wound once a week, some clocks have an electric winder fitted these days.) It's quite probable that the clock was out of action for a while as it needed fixing, which it now has been? Or it was not wound during covid and now it is again? (It would be very difficult to retrofit a quarter hour chime on an old clock I would imagine, so I expect it has always been like that and it's not the new vicar's doing.) You can get automatic silencing mechanisms for night time hours - why don't you offer to do some fundraising to pay for it if it bothers you that much?

Bell ringing on a practice night once a week and for services/weddings/funerals/occasional competitions or visiting bands - that's normal. The only thing I would say is I've never heard of a practice night going on past 9pm, nor one lasting for three hours every week. They are generally somewhere between 1-2hrs practice and finish 9pm latest.

Our bells are out for restoration at the moment. We have had a number of local neighbours comment on our facebook page about how much they are missing the bells and the clock and one saying it's keeping her awake at night because there is no hour chime! After covid, once we could ring again, we were amazed by how many folk commented about how lovely it was to hear the bells, how much they had missed them and how comforting it was to hear them again. I think you will find you are in the minority - the moral of the story is if you don't like it don't move next to a church!

Many churches seem perfectly capable of silencing bells from 10pm to 7am.

OP should read this briefing, print it off and take it to the church to discuss with the vicar.

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/CCB_Church-bells-and-the-law_Sep-2001.pdf

It is info for vicars and churches from the Church of England.
Relevant parts of it are:
1) There does not appear to be any legal right as such to ring bells in the community. It seems to be a matter of custom.
2) The making of unreasonable noise is actionable as a nuisance. The question is whether the person’s use and enjoyment of his/her property is being interfered with. If it is shown that the answer to this question is ‘yes’, damages may be recoverable or an injunction gained in the Civil Courts. This course of action is unlikely to succeed unless the bells are ringing incessantly or at times which would be regarded as unreasonable in the eyes of any prudent person. Short periods of bell ringing for public worship or weddings would not be actionable. More sustained periods at antisocial times might well be.

Whether OP bought the house whilst the bells were silent or used frequently doesn't really matter with respect to nuisance from the church, but could if the house seller omitted to inform the buyer of the bell ringing.

Yes, sorry, i meant the clock part sounding along with the bells(i need to not be typing and frying at the same time), id imagine bells going all night would have the entire village out complaining!
So if the chimes are a new part of the equation i can under stand the annoyance but dont think theres anything you can do really.