Birds, love letters and silver – what sweeps find in chimneys

Wildlife is another common cause of call-outs. Miles said he was contacted several times a month to rescue animals that had become trapped inside chimneys, including wood pigeons, squirrels, magpies, starlings and even a seagull.

One recent job at a listed manor house in mid Devon, uncovered what he believed were decades’ worth of jackdaw nests.

Alongside huge amounts of nesting material were silver-coloured spoons, sugar tongs, bottle tops and fragments of clay pigeon targets which the birds had collected.

“What was really unusual about this one… we found half a dozen spoons, like, silver-type spoons, sugar tongs, bottle tops and caps,” he said.

Miles estimated around four tonnes of nesting material was removed from the property, a task that took two chimney sweeps about 16 hours to complete.