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?

YANBU about the late night bell ringing but YABU about the Saturday, Sunday and practice ringing. I live next to a church and we have the bells ringing Wednesday night and Sunday morning. I’m used to it as have listened to it for years but wish they’d learn something new now and mix it up a bit 😁

John MacEnroe - is that you?

How are people not realising that there is a huge difference between the bells being run on Sundays and for occasional midweek services and a 24/7 ringing every 15 minutes?

That is entirely unreasonable and I would be making a complaint to the local council about the noise nuisance. We put up with the tuneless drone from our village church bells on Sundays but mercifully it doesn't last long. Most of the bellringers have died and no one seems much interested in taking them up so it's a rare occurrence now thank goodness.

Same here but I love it!

I've lived opposite the church in my village for donkeys years.
Every 15 minutes it chimes. It starts off with a ding dong at 15 minutes past, followed by a ding, dong, dang at 30 minutes past, ding, dong, bang, dang at 45 mins past, then the full chorus on the hour, followed by the bongs telling you the hour....twenty four hours a day.
Thursday evening is Bella ringing practice for a couple of hours, weekends are a free for all with weddings, services etc and during the week, the occasional slow bongs for a funeral.
I don't even notice them as I've lived with them for that long.
I hate it when newcomer's demand that the bells are silent. The church was there before them. They want the village life without the village stuff.

It's the same where I live, of course I would never complain about it.

I cried when I heard the bell practice for the first time in two years after Covid.

I can mainly just tune it out now though. I just get slightly irritated by churchgoers blocking the end of my road by parking badly.

They didn't have celebrations during Covid years. It's obvious that the new Vidal started well after the Covid years

I am a ringer. The towers I have rung at have a way of moving the hammer away from the bell used to chime the time so that the bell can be rung without being damaged during ringing practice etc. It just needs someone (how about you volunteer?) to go up the tower to the ringing chamber every evening and take care of it. It is usually in the ringing chamber not the belfry where the bells are.

Are you sure the practices are three hours? Every place I have been to is less than 2. Maybe they are training new ringers and have a session for them first.

The UK is short of ringers by 30,000 people. Many villages have towers where the bells have fallen in disrepair with no bands left to ring them. It can take months or even years to learn to ring to a standard to ring the more complicated methods. Change ringing is a tradition only found in the UK and some of its former colonies. It would be a real shame to see this disappear. Maybe you should consider taking up ringing, or think about it for your DC when they are about 10 or 11 years old. It is good occupation for physical and mental stamina, hand eye coordination, concentration and listening skills. It is also sociable, with ringers usually welcome at practices anywhere in the country.

Lots of ridiculous comments, the church was there before but the bells weren’t ringing that often!
OP, YANBU, at the very least the bells should stop ringing the time at night and practice should not take place in the evening.
regarding ringing every 15 minutes during the day I guess you could initiate a poll and if a large majority of the town’s residents agree with you maybe escalate to the mayor.

I would genuinely be interested to know what the majority of UK residents think about bells ringing the time. Useful and a nice tradition OR unnecessary and noise pollution.

practice should not take place in the evening.

When would you suggest? You are talking about a group of people typically from 10-80, many either in full time jobs or at school.

Yes I was just about to post the same thing!

Also to the pp who says the Sunday service ringing is mercifully short and a lot of the ringers have died - wow! Bit harsh.

For a weekday 5-7pm or 6-8pm at the latest.
For a weekend day 10am-12 or anytime between 2-6pm.

Basically exclude

• times when most children under 8 are trying to get to sleep
• weekend meal times as most families want quiet for these

Quite a lot of slots to choose from, no?

Let’s have a look at that in terms of the purpose of ringing - to call people to church - as well as the need to practise to do it well. Also when the bells can’t be rung - when the church is in use for a service.

At a weekend, churches are often in use for weddings on a Saturday afternoon. Nobody wants a ringing practice going on while they exchange vows.

Service ringing will often be for half an hour before a service, so on a Sunday eg 9.30-10 am for ringing, then the service 10-11.30 (depending on the church, many or all of the ringers may also be in the congregation). Then 5.30 - 6 or 6-6.30 for evensong, with the service following for an hour.

Within the times that you have given, therefore, you actually have Sat 10-12 and Sunday 12 - 5.30 ish, though obviously the ringers will already be ringing once or twice on Sunday so practising as well may be even more annoying than a mid-week session.

Within normal working patterns, 5pm is very early to be anywhere post work. Depending on the location of the tower relative to where most ringers live and work, 6-8 pm may be possible, but that presupposes a 5.30 finish at work. 7-9 or 6.30-8.30 is more normal just to allow travel time.

(Some churches will also have midweek services, often in the evening, which also need to be avoided, and some expert ringers will be visiting different towers to prop up dwindling or new bands, so you will often find towers within a travelling radius ringing on different nights)

Sorry, didn’t notice you’d also ruled out 12-2 at weekends.

Would you really rather ringing 9.30-10, 2-4 and 5.30 -6 every Sunday to just the two half hours on Sunday and the practice midweek??

I suppose the OP wouldn't want dogs barking, babies crying, any motorbikes, drum practice, or children playing in the street from 12-2 on a weekend.
Hey, why don't we tie up the swings like they used to do in the Hebrides on a Sunday? Heaven forbid that anyone have any fun.

As not only a (lapsed) bellringer but also the mother of a saxophonist (and football player - noise from matches and training at all kinds of inconvenient times) I fear you might be right, drspouse.

I know someone who lived near a church like that, they had a poor grasp on time passing so loved the bells.

I have to say I fully agree with you OP even though we might be unreasonable to think it 😂😂
I live directly opposite a church, moved here about 18 months ago, prior to that I lived in the village but down the opposite end and had never heard the church bells ringing before.
Soon upon moving in we realised they have bell ringing practice on weds nights, seems to be around 7-9 but will overlap before 7 and after 9 sometimes. They also ring on sunday mornings. Then there's the random ringing, can either be morning, noon or night, they seemed to have an extra practice night Thursday night the other week, sat morning they went off another week. Sometimes they announce on fb why they are doing it if it's for a cause. And the usual chimes each hour which I dont particularly notice.

Drives me nuts as you can hear it over my tv, my youngest luckily takes no notice and sleeps through it. And the funniest thing about it is whenever they do play everyone is all over the village fb page saying how lovely it is to hear them all the time! I just dont get it lol.

But yes I chose to move there, not knowing at all how often they played but still. I cant imagine having to deal with it every 15 mins, how have you not gone mad!?

Oh and I forgot to mention it always sounds out of sync to me so not only is it annoying in general, it's annoying because it's not enjoyable to listen to either 😂

I find that interesting. It may be because you are expecting the bells always to ring in the same order - highest to lowest. When this is done well, for 6 bells it will go
12345612456 [one bell’s length pause] repeat

However, in English change ringing (a weird, highly anachronistic and challenging activity) the bells actually ring in a different order each time, though each bell can only move 1 place in the order each time and the deepest bell sometimes is chosen to ring last;
123456
213546
231456 etc or

123456
214365
241635 etx

with that tiny ‘hitch’ every two rings.

I agree that it doesn’t sound as ‘even’ or ‘in sync’ as ringing the same thing every time, but learning the patterns to change the order each time is the very essence of English ringing, and has been for centuries.

I grew up in a village where the bells rang every 15 mins . I loved it. Didn't bother any of us. Then sadly people like you moved in and started to complain about the bells. Eventually you got your way and the bells were silenced. I don't like people like you.

@cantkeepawayforever that does sound exactly what I'm trying to say 😂 it literally sounds like there is a hitch in the notes and I just want it to ring smoothly!

It drives me and my partner mad and anyone who comes to visit when its happening ask how we put up with it, but to be honest even though we moan about it we have very much gotten used to it so much so that on a weds when they didn't practice I was sitting here wondering why it was so quiet lol.

If it would help at all to understand what’s going on, count the number of bells between each ‘hitch’. If they’re ringing really well, it should be twice the number of bells in the tower.

Essentially, to ring, each bell starts just about upside down (open mouth at the top). To be rung once, it rotates one way all the way round so it is once again upside down, then the ringer pulls the very end of the rope and it is swung back the opposite way to its starting point, during which movement it rings a second time. Those two movements follow smoothly on each other, then there is that very slight ‘hitch’ before the two movements start again.

There are probably YouTube videos on this stuff….