Shortly before Christmas there was an article in a local paper about the church clock and bells in a nearby village. A decision had been taken to stop the church clock striking every quarter during the night. I must say this seems reasonable to me. I’m sure there is no long-standing tradition of bell-ringers ringing during the night, before the advent of clockwork mechanisms. I looked up this church on Wiki to learn a bit about the bells, a peal of six, each with its own history. This reminded me of the Dorothy L. Sayers’ novel “The Nine Tailors”, which I then started to read again. Not very cheery reading at Christmas, perhaps, but the narrative starts just before the New Year.
The story is set in the Fens where there are some outstandingly beautiful churches, and the hero, Lord Peter Wimsey of course, ends up stranded in a small village after a car accident. The village bell-ringers are intending to ring in the New Year with a record-breaking peal of Kent Treble Bob Majors, but an epidemic of influenza has reduced the number of change-ringers and Wimsey is pressed into service, having admitted some previous experience. The whole book is centred on the fictitious village, Fenchurch St Paul, its church and its bells.
What is still relevant is part of the foreword:
“From time to time complaints are made about the ringing of church bells. … England , alone in the world, has perfected the art of change-ringing and the true ringing of bells by rope and wheel, and will not lightly surrender her unique heritage.”
It always annoys me when people who have bought a place in the country as a weekend retreat then complain about the church bells ringing on a Sunday morning, as they have probably done for centuries.
For anyone who is interested in change-ringing, I can recommend this book.
Boadicea's Chariot 
We have a few variations on your theme here. People move to Cornwall and the seaside, then complain about the noise (and mess) the gulls make. We also have a striking town clock, or rather we did have!! In the summer, the clock was never a match for the noise in the street as created when the pubs close anyway.
I’m afraid it’s a human phenomenon that people only notice what attracts them to a new home – until they move in; then they notice all the less atractive features!
I guess bells that chime the time are a bit redundant now that we all have watches, clocks, radios etc to tell us the time which was not the case when most of these bells were first installed. Having said that although I am the sort of chap who willingly embraces the future with a passion I never lose my grip on the past.
At least bells don’t swoop down and grab your food like seagulls do. In France we have both bells and seagulls and live with them.
Another local variation! From when I lived in Stonor up on the Chilterns above Henley.
An upwardly mobile youngish couple moved into next door from bloody suburban Banstead in Surrey and proceeded to complain non stop about-
1. cow muck on the roads (Like considering a large dairy herd at each end of the village? What did she expect?)
2. Weirdos grunting in the woods, terrifying her children. (Deer in the rutting season! Maybe she just hadn’t noticed her place backed on to a deer park?)
3. children screaming at night in the woods. Night jars not paedos!!!)
4. Real dust in the house caused by tractors roaring round fields, whatever next?
5. The Dowager’s chickens next door. (She had right short thrift from her and pithily put!!)
And then the real coup de grace-
6. Weekly re-enactments of WWIII from the private shoot on the land. A high bird came down in her garden, shot, not dead. Oh my god, the kerfuffle, the screams and howls. I was in my studio, looked out the window and saw her leaping around this poor bloody bird. Went round did the business with a flick of the wrist, got her calmed down.
And told her point blank the community was far too rural for her, she was making her own life a misery and ours too and it would be much better to cut her losses and move down into Henley where it would be far more suburban and acceptable to her (away from the river.) She had the sense to do just that, sold the place in a couple of weeks flat and was as happy as Larry keeping up with the Jones’ comparing her nail varnish and shopping, whatever! I used to run into her regularly was quite a different person. Big mistake to go too far out of your milieu, but people just will do it.
Very similar in Carmarthenshire, the English cluster round Llandeilo, never venture forth North into the uncouth rural hinterland of tooth and claw! the Welsh like it that way as they keep them corralled up to the English speaking school.
I am very pro any of our cultural happenings, bell ringing, morris dancing etc etc.
Cheese rolling they tried to stop and failed.
They did stop the Rebecca riot re enactments in South Wales. (Men dressed in women’s clothing!!!)
Hope you kept the bird for your pains, Christina. I also hope you’re feeling better.