CHURCHES and worshippers throughout Gloucestershire will be ringing in the London Olympics.

At 4pm on August 24, Beijing will bring down the curtain on its games and officially hand over responsibility to the London organising committee.

To mark the occasion, the Cultural Olympiad for the South West wants churches and other organisations to make some noise.

The bells of St Mary's, in central Cheltenham, the oldest building in the town, will be ringing out to mark the start of the London Olympiad.

The Rev Andrew Dow, vicar of St Mary with St Matthew, said: “Our bell-ringers will be ringing that afternoon, and I'm sure will ring the bells at the time of the handover.

“I think it's a fitting thing to welcome the Olympics to Britain if the games have demonstrated some of the global spirit.

“Sport can be a great vehicle but it can be misused, so I hope the games go well.”

One church in Cheltenham which won't be ringing its bell is Christ Church in Malvern Road.

Vicar the Rev Tim Mayfield said: “I'd love to ring in the London Olympics, but Christ Church only has one bell and I'm afraid it might sound rather funereal.

“I'm all in favour of this sort of thing.

“I think the church should do as much as possible to make contact with the 'outside world', including things like the Olympics.”

Mr Mayfield said he would be thinking about how his church might do something to mark the handover of the Olympic flag to London, host of the 2012 games.

He said: “I think it's a positive idea and I'll be working out what we can do to make a bit of a racket.”

Trinity Church in Portland Street is another church which will be looking to help make a noise in some form.

Operations manager Anne Houghton said: “I don't think we've thought that far ahead, but I'm sure we'd want to get involved in it. I'm not sure what we'd do, but I'm certain we'll want to do something.”

As well as church bells, the organisers of Ringing in the Olympics want everyone else to join in.

Spokeswoman Susie Pickering said: “We want two minutes of noise to start at 4pm.

“We hope bell-ringers, town criers, ships' captains, ice cream vans and village fetes will all mark this moment in some way.

“We even have a specially commissioned ringtone that will be available for all to download free. This will be beamed up to space by BT in Goonhilly, Cornwall.”