I must admit you scored a point there, Michael! I think the bell was almost certainly run at sunrise. In Helen's original message that started all this fun she mentions 7am, so we can be pretty sure that the time had already been back an hour or two by the 'oldies'! If they ring from May to September it's because these are the longest and busiest days of the farming year. No BST, GMT, CET or whatever. If the sun was up so were you...and at what (real) time does the sun come up in Stoke Abbot on the 21st June? On the other hand I suspect that this was neither a village wake-up system, nor even a call to go to church. Way back - but really way back - the church bell was rung morning, noon and evening calling the workers afield to pray the "angelus" without having to come all the way back to the village. There is a very famous painting with this title by Millet, where a couple of peasants are depicted praying in a field. The angelus is/was quite a long prayer (or prayers) and may explain why the bell is rung for a long time. Even tradition-loving me finds a hundred tinkles a bit heavy-handed! Is there a village historian who can solve the problem? Just a final technical remark to Helen. Curfew = couvre-feu = cover your fires = lights out! So it's only in the evening. Anyone in the streets after the curfew had been rung was by definition up to no good !! Geoff