Church Bells

[What?]

So I live in the centre of town and can hear most of the church bells in St Andrews and out of curiosity was wondering if anyone knows why none of them sound on the hour?

Holy Trinity is always 1 minute slow, I think St Salvator's is just after it, and the last chime of 8 o'clock somewhere else just ended at 8.04:44 by my computer clock, which as it updates from the internet I assume to be absolutely correct.

Anyone know if there are traditions or reasons for the late bells?

[ct3012]

My guess would be that it's because clocks like that never run totally on time. They always manage to lose or gain it, as they are probably manually set by someone and not maintained too often.
The Wiki page on Big Ben (as reliable as Wiki can be...) has some sort of explanation as to how the tower clock mechanism works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ben

[Hennessy]

How far away have you heard them from before? I once heard them from the East Sands Leisure Centure.

[Al]

The curfew is rung at 8 pm.

[Thackary]

Why is there a curfew at 8? I've never totally understood it. None of the kids seem to pay it any heed.

I used to live on Logies Lane, and was woken every Sunday morning by the bells playing their tunes. The worst was "To be a Pilgrim", which had to substitute a high note with a low one, as it didn't have the range. Sounded dreadful!

[What?]

I've heard the bells of Holy Trinity from Lamond Drive before. I pity those who live on Church Square.

[Amorphous]

Why is there a curfew at 8? I've never totally understood it. None of the kids seem to pay it any heed.

Take this with a pinch of salt, but I was told by a friend that it dates from a time when all students had to be safely locked up in halls by 8pm - the bell at St Regs rang 100 times, and anyone not back in hall by the time it finished ringing would face trouble when they had to ask to Warden to get in.

It certainly still seems to ring 100 times today (I tried counting once and got into the high 90s, I suspect I missed a few somehow) although I'm not sure why. My tops guesses are either 'for tradition's sake' or 'there's a mechanism we're terrified of dismantling'.

[LonelyPilgrim]

There is no clock regulating St Salvator's bells. They are manual rung. I know this because I used to ring them. They are dependent on someone's watch, no doubt.

[sat]

Since graduating I have moved to Durham. The bells in the cathedral here are rung for seemingly hours on Thursday nights and Sundays, and can be heard from a fair distance. That's on top of a number of parish churches with bells in their towers.

[CheeseDaddy]

Yeah the cathedral bells in Durham do ring for rather a long time sometimes, Im sure several hours isnt unheard of and you can often hear them from where I live (several miles out of town). I've always quite liked the way the different churches' bells in St Andrews ring one after another, you can hear them from right out by Morrisons sometimes.