Visit From His Worship The Sweep (29 July 1977)

I suppose that any chimney sweep still operating in West Bletchley will not have as much work to do after the Clean Air Act comes into force there later this year.  Chimney sweeps follow an ancient and honourable craft, even if – unlike broderers, horners, loriners and cordwainers – they are not represented among the 80-odd Livery Companies of the City of London.

If you have ever had difficulty in locating a chimney sweep, it may be some consolation for you to know that in times past they have often been pretty thin on the ground officially.  Thus, according to the Bucks Posse Commitatus of 1798, there were only five among all the 50 main towns and villages in the Newport Hundreds.  Perhaps I had better explain that the Posse either was or was intended to be the “Dad’s Army” of that time.  As on a more recent occasion, Britain stood alone against a threat of invasion by a formidable foreign power.  That time it was France.  She was assembling an army on the Channel coast and had appointed as its commander-in-chief Citizen General Bonaparte – “Old Boney” the British used to call him, the same who became Emperor Napoleon until the British and Germans settled his hash at Waterloo.

In answer to this threat parish constables throughout England were ordered to draw up a list of all men in their parishes aged 16 to 60, together with their occupations.  The Buckinghamshire list is still preserved and forms some sort of guide to the population of male labour at that time.  It lists three chimney sweeps at Newport, one at Olney and one at Water Eaton.

In my boyhood a visit from the sweep was an exciting event.  We had a pleasant duty to perform.  This was to be outside and to call out to his worship the sweep as soon as his brush emerged from the chimney top.  Mum bought the bag of soot and when Dad came home he took it to the allotment.  There he placed it intact in a tub of water and eventually used the liquid on the ground.  The water was frequently replenished and the bag of soot was kept in the tub until the next chimney sweeping.

For years I forgot there was such a job as chimney sweeping.   The army reminded me.  The cookhouse chimney had to be swept and I was detailed to be one of the two sweepers.  The cookhouse was a former garage with a fairly high galvanised roof, through which the rather narrow chimney penetrated.  The method was for one man to go on the roof carrying a rope which had a sort of handbrush tied about halfway along its length.  The roofman popped one end down the chimney.  The other man received it at the bottom.  They then drew the brush up and down the chimney until no more soot could be swept or banged from it.

I daresay the inside would then have been polished as well had that been possible.

I was wearing a decent set of denims, with which I was rather pleased.   Unfortunately, I was also the man at the bottom and before the job was half done I was covered with soot from head to foot.  The things I’ve done for England!

Sweeps used to be about their business so early that I often wondered what they did the rest of the day, but never found out.  A Fenny sweep for quite a long time was Mr W H Busler, who lived in Tavistock Street and retired in 1947, aged 74.

He told me there had been times when he had to rise at 4am to begin work on time.  For instance, the Leons, at Bletchley Park, expected him to be there by 5am so as to have the chimneys swept before the day’s cooking began.  On most days in the past he had to be at work by 6am, “but nowadays I am not wanted until eight.”

Yet, in his opinion, the job had not improved with the passage of time.  He explained that in the old days chimneys were wider – mostly 14in square and never less than 14in by 9in.  Now they were down to 9in square and much more difficult.

He also regretted the way in which the chimneys of some fine old houses had been modified.  To suit narrower grates they had been made narower(sic) towards the bottom, but were still the old width above.  This left ledges on which soot could not be thoroughly removed.  Hence a growing number of unwanted fires at such places.

Spring-cleaning time had usually been a busy period for him, but his busiest ever had been only the previous Christmas, when he had dealt with 70 chimneys in a single week.

New methods of chimney sweeping are now superseding the old.  But I cannot imagine a bride being eager to be kissed by a clean sweep with a vacuum cleaner.