Something just occured to me, I don’t think I’ve heard church steeple bells in 10 years.
When I was growing up I heard them all the time. Bonging out the hours, or codes for weddings or funerals etc. But I just dont hear them anymore. It could be that I don’t live close enough to a church or something, but I don’t remember hearing them driving around town or whatever.
Did they get noise ordinanced out of usage, or is it just a new style to keep them very muted or what?
I hear them all the time chiming the hour and such. They’re never quite accurate.
We stayed in Tewkesbury last month, at a caravan camp near the Abbey. On the Saturday morning, the bells started ringing a peal at 10:00am and rang continuously for 3 hours (in addition to ringing the hours and quarters and services). I was nearly going bonkers by the end.
Our village church rings bells to announce services - some people dislike the 9:00am Sunday bells, but the vicar enjoys it, and the church has the right to do so, so we do. I like it.
Si
The Catholic church in my neighborhood here (Portland) rings its bells quite frequently. At least daily. On Sundays, I hear many church bells in the city.
In WW2 British church bells were silenced as they were to be used to announce an invasion.
The Catholic church down the street from us rings the bell at noon and six everyday during the week. They also ring the bell at 9am for Sunday Mass.
A lot of churches may not have a steeple bell, or if they have one may not ring it. In some places, yes, they may have been noise ordinanced away, but I think it’s more common for it just to not be convenient to have someone ring the bell on a regular basis.
But there are still churches which ring bells.
Some newer churches have recordings of bells played through loudspeakers.
The church across the street from me had been ringing their bells every Sunday morning at 10:00. I noticed them when I first moved into this apartment in March, however the bells have not rung for the about the last 4 or 5 Sundays.
Ughhh… About twenty years ago, a church near my mother’s house ditched its traditional carillion and replaced it with something that looked like part of an oil drilling rig, complete with awful electronic noises. In addition to sounding bad, the thing was screwy and would sound off at the wrong times, or play a couple dozen bongs at 2 in the afternoon. The surrounding neighborhood complained about as loudly as the PA system itself, and the church wound up having to fix it and cut both the volume and the frequency of use.
On the other hand, there is a church about a block from my downtown office that still has a real steeple with at least one real bell, and they use it daily.
The church I attend rings the bells shortly before each mass on the weekends, but I don’t think they do it for the daily masses or for the hours. On the other hand, the administrative building in the middle of campus has a bell tower, too, and they do ring the hours.
There’s a church in Cork, Ireland that not only still rings the bells on a regular basis, but they let any old tourist who comes to see the church ring them, too. They have a full octave, and you can play simple tunes on them.
The village church around the corner from my house only rings the call-to-worship bells on Sunday mornings.
The big university on the hill rings the hours, but I think that comes from a tower, not he chapel.
The Lutheran church across the street from my house rings its bells throughout the day on the hour, as well as for funerals and such. One thing I particularly like about it is that around Christmastime they’ll ring out snippets of Christmas carols.
These days I don’t notice it much, since it’s such a regular occurrence. Only the funerals or if somebody plays a particularly recognizable tune will catch my attention anymore.
There’s a Catholic church down the street from us that occasionally rings its bells, though I’ve only heard them a few times when I happened to be outside at the right moment.
There is a church that plays songs on their bells here at 12:35 and 6:35 pm every day. I like it.
At my church we ring the bell approximately 10 minutes before each service, to remind people to put down their coffee cups and come inside because we’re about to get started. It’s the job of the ushers to remember to ring it, which they often forget.
I don’t know if they ever have here in L.A., where I’ve lived nearly all my life, and I’m 50. The only place I ever heard the hours struck here was on the UCLA campus.
However, when I visted San Francisco the first time, around 1993, I heard church bells striking the hours frequently; it was one more of the many different things I noticed between it and my hometown.
A church near my college campus had one of those things when I was there (about 8 years ago.) Even when the infernal thing was working properly, it still didn’t sound that good.
IIRC, many churches gave their bells to the scrap drives in WW2 and didn’t replace them.
Most that remain tend to be in larger churches, and rung only on special occasions.
Whoever got rid of live bells for electronics probably didn’t have a carillon. That’s at least 23 bells, a serious installation typically meriting a specialist player (called a carillonneur).
The Netherlands Carillion in Arlington, near the Marina Corps War memorial in Arlington VA. Close-up of the bells.
There are plenty of bell towers in midtown DC. The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church tower keeps quite good time.
