Church bells found not guilty

Press, 4 January 1978, Page 17

Church bells found not guilty

When do the chimes of a village church clock contravene the law by becoming a public nuisance? The question was posed at the Buckingham magistrates’ court.

In a test case, the chimes of the ancient parish church of Twyford (population 500), which had been silenced at the instigation of a publican living opposite, were found not guilty of emitting a noise amounting to a nuisance.

Next morning, they were switched on again by jubilant villagers to chime at each quarter of the hour, day and night, as they have done (breakdowns apart) for more than a century.

The villagers regard the chimes as “a symbol of something very deep in the life of the village”—as the vicar, the Rev Andrew de Pury, put it in court. Colin Thomson, landlord of the Red Lion, and three neighbours (all “incomers” to the village), deplore the nocturnal chimes that keep them awake.

The case provided further proof that, when it comes to noise pollution, one man’s music can be another man’s menace.

The Control of Pollution Act, 1974, camj into effect at the beginning of last year and since then health officers have been kept busy investigating complaints about noise. Last year 27,115 complaints were received, of which 11,000 were judged to be nuisances contravening the section of the act which deals with noise pollution. They ranged from noises in factories and commercial premises to babies crying, children playing, radios blaring, pianos pounding, dogs barking, pigs squealing, parrots squawking — and clocks striking or chiming. Ken Tyler, assistant secretary of the Environmental Health Officers’ Association, says: “The increase in the number of complaints indicates that the public is now more aware of noise as pollution and of the action they can take.”

Last year, 10,000 of the 11,000 confirmed nuisances were amicably settled; there were only 217 prosecutions and one con-

viction. “To find church clock chimes the subject of court proceedings is something very unusual,” says Tyler. Twyford's chimes, which are similar to Big Ben’s, were not operating when Thomson took over the Red Lion as tenant licensee in May, 1975. They had been silenced by a fault in the hammer mechanism.

It was not until May this year that they were set going again, and Thomson immediately lodged a complaint with the parochial church council. He said that he and his wife, Pauline, were being kept awake by the quarterhourly boomings from the belfry only 80ft from their bedroom window. At midnight, the full chime, followed by the striking of the hour, lasts for 55.8 seconds.

By

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN,

“Sunday

Times,” London

When the council refused to silence the chimes Thomson sought an injunction, but failed to get it. In October, after a vain bid to reach a compromise by offering to pay for a time

switch that would silence the chimes between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., he asked Aylesbury Vale district council for tests. An inspector considered that the decibel rating on his sound meter (which registers noises ranging

from a “lethal level” of 200 decibels to 10 decibels for leaves rustling in the wind) constituted a nuisance and the council issued a statutory notice ordering the chimes to be silenced.

It was the appeal against this notice, by Twyford’s vicar, churchwardens and parochial church council, that led to the unprecedented twoday hearing at Buckingham. This revealed a village—typical of most—in which incomers outnumber the indigenous population who, as the Court was

told, have seen much of their old way of life eroded and who cling to the chimes as a symbol of stability.

Gordon Rice, counsel for the appellants, claimed that most villagers wanted the chimes to continue, and that the elderly, who tended to wake during the night, gained great comfort from the sound of the chimes they had known from childhood. “On a cold winter’s night, when you’re all snuggled up in bed and you hear the clock chimes, then you’re thankful you’re snug in bed," said one old man, surprised to find himself in a witness box. Thomson, himself country bom and bred, has based his complaint on the fact that he lives closer than anyone else to the chimes and that his already indifferent health has suffered from restless nights. During the five weeks the chimes had been stopped, he told the court.

he had given up sleeping pills, slept soundly, and felt no strain in presenting a “cheerful face” to his customers.

He resents suggestions made in court that he might consider leaving the village when his yearly tenancy comes up for renewal next May, and says he is considering an appeal. A civil court action for damages which he started last May is still pending. Keeping a sharp eye on the case of the Twyford chimes is John Connell,

chairman of the Noise Abatement Society, a voluntary, independent organisation founded in 1959 to “eliminate excessive and unnecessary noise from all sources.” "Church chimes, like babies crying or the sounds coming from a children’s playground, are emotive issues about which it is difficult to be objective,” he says. He is advising Thomson about legal action he could take.