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?

Ah, so you just don’t like the vicar and the bells are an excuse to have a go.

What's the point of them ringing so late at night? The reason?

its like moving near to a school and being annoyed by the parents dropping off their kids, or a busy road and the traffic noise.

I like the sound of church bells and live opposite a church, admittedly they don’t go on late but I couldn’t really complain if they did. Sometimes (very odd occasions), they chime at 8am on a Saturday and I love being woken up by them as I know I’ve had a massive lay in!

Contact the council. You are entitled to quiet enjoyment of your home. I got a busker moved from underneath my flat once for playing the accordion day and night. I don't see how this is different. you and your neighbours all need to bring this up.

I would it take it further because the circumstances have changed. Previously the bells rang occasionally. Now they are ringing every 15 minutes so that's a massive change. They should be silenced in the night. I live in a Catholic country where bells are still rung everywhere and where the people are still culturally very Catholic, even though most no longer believe and attend Mass. Even here the bells are off at night.
Bell ringing on Sunday mornings is ok and obviously they have to have a bell ringing practice too but a compromise would be for them to finish the rehearsal earlier - ie. 2 hours. And the random jollies need to stop too.
Yes, you moved near a church and the church was there longer blah blah, but they have moved the goal posts significantly so there needs to be discussion and compromise.

Wow @Elisi that's quite a rude post especially from someone talking about good manners.

I wonder what you mean by "woke speak"? The fact that you don't like it (to be woke means to be aware of and avoiding racism and other prejudice) makes me somewhat wary tbh.

I like the sound of church bells and live opposite a church, admittedly they don’t go on late

Yeah, they don't go on late. Going on all through the bloody night is ridiculous.

The ringing every 15 minutes is the church clock.

Fairly sure the church near me has a night 'mode' where it might just chime the hour

This post isn’t about bells, really, is it? It’s about change and the failure to cope with it.

Exactly. WTF is wrong with being woke??

I get your frustration, it’s understandable, the church was there when you bought the house but that is a lot of ringing.

I love church bells. Grew up near a church that would ring the bells, I was also abused as a child, when I heard those bells on a sunny Sunday morning it gave me hope to carry on, not to sound sentimental but it helped me.

The closer in physical proximity to the church bells, the better, for me! Now, the incense, that’s different 😄 hard to take the strong stuff.

Don’t ever go to Switzerland 😆

Our local church rings it’s bells for ten minutes at 5.30am. Every. Single. Day.

Then again for ten minutes at 11am.

Then again for ten minutes at 7.20pm.

Plus on the hour every hour.

Plus for ten minutes at the beginning of a church service.

Plus for ten minutes at the end of a church service.

Plus for ten minutes when someone dies.

Doesn‘t it just become background noise?

YABU to buy a house next to a church and complain about the bells!

drspouse · Today 14:25
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.”

Dont be silly. All of those things are very different to church bells ringing every 15 minutes, every night.
We stayed in a B&B where this happened (no, we didn’t know it was close to the church when we booked). We were booked to stay for 4 nights but had to find somewhere else after 2. It was akin to torture. There is no need whatsoever for church bells, or any bells, to ring every 15 minutes after 9pm.

Chiming through the night is ridiculous. I think the day is fine, the ringing on the practices and at weddings is lovely, but the chiming would annoy me. I used to live next to an old church with bells and enjoyed hearing them but I'd not appreciate 11 chimes at 11pm, no!

Is no one properly reading the OP?

The constant bell ringing IS new. OP grew up there, and it has always been on the odd occasion. It's more changed to every 15 minutes plus all the other stuff.

It's gone from chalk to cheese, so to speak, so yes OP, absolutely you can, and should, take this further. It was not like this when you purchased the house.

What your great great great grandparents did is utterly irrelevant. The fact remains that you chose to move to a house near the church a long, long time after the church was built and the bells were installed. My great great grandparents lived where our local station is, I don't claim that gives me a right to get the rails torn up.

Unless you know how much the bells have been rung over the decades, probably centuries, since they were installed, you can't claim that the new vicar has done something outrageously new. As I've pointed out, it's incredibly unlikely that the vicar has anything to do with the increased bellringing activity, because bellringers are volunteers who aren't governed by the church and she won't have been able to magic up a keen band of ringers just because she felt like it. She may have had something to do with the clock striking, but it's not clear that that wasn't, for instance, a congregation initiative.

are you actually a member of the congregation? If not, what difference does it make to you that the new vicar is female, or uses her phone during the sermon (perhaps easier than printing it off), or heaven forbid says “woke” stuff. I mean, that Jesus bloke said some pretty radical stuff about welcoming refugees, looking after the poor and widowed and sick, and not judging other people. And she would be a bit of a fan of him, being a vicar and all…

if you’re not a member of the congregation then this is just petty village gossip and I feel quite sorry for the vicar. I can hear the hoiked bosoms and cats bum mouths from here.

You'll get used to it.

Our village church rings the hour, the quarter, the half, big bells on Sundays and bell ringing practice on Wednesdays.

I no longer notice. It's only when a visitor mentions it that I even hear it.

It's like the clock in my living room. I don't hear it ticking any more.

Give it time, stop getting annoyed about it and it'll stop registering.

I think she bought a house next to a church where the bells were rung for special occasions. Now there is a new vicar the bells are rung 4 times an hour every hour. Of course she can complain about the change.

The vicar is being a bad neighbour. There is plenty of room for compromise here.

The bells aren't being run four times an hour. The clock is chiming.

It's really quite Ironic that you blame a centuries-old traditional activity on being "woke".

Mind you, you would probably have thought Christ was horrendously woke.

Not sure that female-ness or wokeness of mobile phone wielding vicar is a direct correlation to clock or bell chimes. It just makes it sound like you are unreasonably annoyed at everything and somewhat unhinged, even though you might be totally reasonable about the chimes.

So - how often did they chime before? We can’t really tell from your posts whether it’s because you’ve moved closer or because the vicar has a phone or because everyone hates change or because there is a totally new timing schedule on the chimes / bells. If they didn’t ever used to ring through the night before you moved there, then totally fair enough. Church are being unreasonable and I’d keep going with complaints. But keep it factual and refer only to chime schedules and how it’s changed.

Choosing to live near a church with bells.....then moan that they are ringing. What do you expect?

Surely it's the clock? With bellringing as a separate thing?

There won't be someone in the belltower every hour of every day!