CHIMNEY SWEEPERS FOR 200 YEARS.

Shannon News, 10 July 1925, Page 4

CHIMNEY SWEEPERS FOR 200 YEARS.

INTERESTING THAMES-SIDE FAMILY. There cannot be many families of hereditary chimney-sweepers left now , but there is one that has lived at various places on the upper Thames— Kingston, Twickenham, Honslop, Sunbury—for, more than two hundred years. The present head, Mr. C. Bowles, says his family operations go back to the time when chimneys were first made. But that is at least five hundred years. Hampton Court, with its magnificent chimneys, was built tour hundred years ago. Mr. Bowles remembers the days when boys had to climb chimneys to sweep them. He was one of these boys, and lost his only half-crown in a soot avalanche. His grandmother used to carry the boys from room to room in her apron. They had a bath once a week, and slept in black beds meanwhile!

It was a cruel life, and it is a mercy that people have now leaned to make chimneys straight enough and brushes long enough to allow the work to be done from below.