Church bells

[Isxmasoveryet]

Am i being unreasonable to think churches should not be aloud to ring those damn bells for hours on end a few times a week it not very christain disturbing neighbours etc for several hours

@Isatis - I had no idea it was so complicated!

It's very complicated. More like maths than anything. Also very satisfying when you get it right

Instead of all the disturbing practising I wonder why they don't just install speakers and play recorded bell ringing?

They don't flog up the tower every hour to ring the bells to tell people the time. They have a mechanical clock that chimes.

Because that would mean losing a centuries-old art and tradition?

They could still have the bell sounds, just recorded. What is wrong with that? Stopping the hours of practising that clearly disturb some people.

Many churches if not most, have recorded organ music nowadays not an organ player. Works fine.

Times change and traditions can be updated.

to be honest, if we stopped doing anything that disturbed someone, what would we do?
Perhaps the boot is on the other foot and people should learn tolerance. That's how a civilised society works. There's plenty of things I find disturbing but I'm not the centre of the universe, so I don't feel my needs should be catered for.

This.

People do not seem to realise the difference between humans ringing the bells ( one evening a week plus sundays and extras) and CLOCK CHIMES which are automatic and go off every 15 minutes for about 5 seconds each time, sometimes though the nights. Most people get used to this and like it but some of course complain and get it stopped. Ringing by real ringers does have fairly strict controls on time and length.

I'm not in the slightest bit religious, but I absolutely say you are being unreasonable. I take it the church is an old one, as I have never seen any new ones with bells, which means you chose to live near a church, knowing full well that it has a bell and it would highly likely be rung!

The op lives in a hostel. I'd imagine choice didn't come into it.

I love hearing the bells. When they practice in the summer it is so nice to sit out having a drink and getting mesmerised by them.

I'm all for tolerance but excessive noise is something we should not have to tolerate.

Well, what is 'excessive'? Very subjective I think.
Especially as several posters are making frankly unbelievable claims about how long ringing goes on.

It's not "all that disturbing practising", it's usually 1.5h one night a week with a hard cut off at 9. Churches need to get on with the neighbours like everyone else.

Fwiw, when I rang, the cut off point was a strictly enforced 9pm.

I see the OP hasn't been back to the thread for more than 48 hours since making the dubious claim that the church bells ring '8am to 11 every Sunday morning' and '7pm to 10 pm every Thursday'. Why would the bells be ringing all the way through the Sunday morning services? Think someone's stretching the truth here a bit.

I agree Calliecarpa. I have yet to come across a tower that practices in the evening for longer than 1.5 hours and usually they finish at 9.00 precisely because they don't want to annoy neighbours late at night with ringing. Towers also ring for about 30 - 45 minutes before a service (the whole point being to let people know a service is taking place) so unless the OP's church is having services throughout the morning the bells would only ring once or twice if they have two services.

If the OP is still following this, I just want to say that, although I disagree with you about the bell ringing, I understand how you're not necessarily in a good place (literally and figuratively) at the moment.
I remember my dh pointing out a drilling noise from nearby. Until then, I hadn't noticed it, but then I couldn't NOT hear it, and found it very annoying.
Look after yourself.

One of the bell ringers has told me that they had a big recruitment drive some time ago, and as a result of that they actually have a large group of would-be bell ringers.

Many are coming from other parishes. I have no idea if they also practice in those other parishes too, but believe me, they do practise here every single Saturday and for several hours. I live just across the road from the church, close enough for it to be nigh on impossible not to know when they are there.

So shall we disband most of our orchestras because we already have recordings of most of the music written so far?

The fact that a very few people are disturbed really can't be a reason for bringing an end to a tradition like this that plenty of people want to keep going. After all, it's not as if it isn't pretty easy to avoid the sound if you don't like it.

I doubt that anyone is locked into the hostel for the relatively short period that bells are ringing, nor are they prevented from using earmuffs or noise cancelling headphones.

It sounds as if you live near a ringing centre. There are very few of those.

Of course. My response was to a pp who suggested that she chose to live there.

Try mindfulness. Church bells are a wonderful way to relax & feel calm.