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Unoccupied at night

Not, as you might think, the state of premises, but the occupation of the Parish Clerk of Cannock in Staffordshire as recorded in the 1891 census.

William Devey’s full occupation was recorded as, Parish Clerk, Stationer, Bookseller and Bank Officer unoccupied at night”.

Mind you, he was probably responsible for the local census so could get away with that/

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#1891 census #Cannock

46 STRANGE AND AMAZING FACTS from the 46 little cottages of Choumert Square

1. The Square was named after the 19th Century landowner George Choumert, who was of French extraction and who died in 1831. 2. There is constant discussion about how this laneway came to be called a Square – and not a Walk ! 3. The 1891 Census lists occupations of the Square residents which include bricklayer, dressmaker, police constable, wool warehouseman, bookbinder, mantle maker, bailiff, cooper, collar machinist, insurance clerk, steam engine fitter, laundress, commercial traveller, tram car driver, office boy, mason, domestic servant, coachman groom, carpenter, commissioner of city police, accountant, music teacher, telegraphist, paperhanger, picture dealer and pastry cook. 4. The same 1891 census numbers 106 residents in the Square. In one little house on the North side, at least 6 people were in residence, being a man, his two sisters, one brother, cousin and a boarder. 5. Many years ago, Choumert Square was known to locals as Cut-Throat Lane. 6. Close by the Square is the Choumert Grove car park, the site of the former Tower Cinema, built in the early 20th Century to (some say) Opera House proportions. Before that, it was a watercress bed, the water in the area being so pure. 7. It is widely believed that beneath the communal garden paving is a well that used to serve the Quantock Laundry next door to the Square. A resident nearby says that he has purity of water at 40’ below his garden. 8. Pigs grazed in the Square during the last war.

Illustration (c) Alice Haworth-Booth

9. If you can break through the concrete and get roots of shrubs, trees or roses into `Peckham’, they will grow phenomenally well – the true Peckham soil being very rich from past generations when land here was used for market gardening. 10. Choumert Square has appeared on maps variously described as a public footpath, private road – and anonymous dotted line! 11. Only three houses in the Square currently bear `names’. These are Trelowen, Wychways and April Cottage. One house was called Bide-a-Wee Cottage but when renovation was done a few years ago, the builder sadly removed the leaded light window across the front door that bore this name. Another resident and ardent rose-grower wanted to call his house Rose Cottage, but his partner objected. So he had the name translated into Ojibway, which made it `Guinee Wigwam’ – this name lasted one week. 12. Houses on the north side of the Square have doors at the back of the buildings that were originally the houses’ front doors. Many still have doorknockers and letterboxes. 13. Those doors used to open onto an alleyway known affectionately as the Square’s `Back Passage’ – in its time, the scene of many an amorous fling. 14. Back in the 1970s, the Square enjoyed notoriety on account of a couple who always concluded domestic `differences of opinion’ by racing one another stark naked up and down the Square. 15. Another couple who lived in the Square ran up an enormous minicab bill after one row, because they couldn’t agree who should keep the TV set. A poor minicab driver spent a night ferrying the TV between their house on the Square and the man’s studio in town…. neither party wanting to take responsibility for paying the driver. 16. One 1970s resident did time for forging luncheon vouchers! 17. One former resident worked in the colonial legal service. His postings were Trinidad, Uganda, Fiji and Northern Rhodesia –which became Zambia, of which in time he became Chief Justice. 18. A former resident sold his house in the Square and bought a boat to live in. The boat was formerly owned by the actor Claude Rains (of CASABLANCA fame). 19. A Choumert Square resident won the 50th Anniversary Land Rover competition with his affectionate reminiscences of his own old Land Rover. 20. One of the Square’s former residents designed the dismantling of old London Bridge. 21. One former resident started her career as a Lyons Corner House `Nippy’ and concluded her working days as Head Waitress at the Lord Mayor’s banquet. 22. Choumert Square boasted the youngest ever contributor to BBC TV’s Gardeners’ World when, in 1988, a resident’s nine-year-old daughter had her own five minute spot on the show. 23. Every Christmas since 1983, Choumert Square has held its own Carols by Lamplight evening, with brass accompaniment and lashings of hot mulled wine. 24. The Square is home to at least three working harmoniums, one of which used to be wheeled up and down the Square at carol-singing time. 25. At least two baby grand pianos have been accommodated in the Choumert cottages – one in an upstairs room (!) another in a front parlour. 26. At one time, a house in the Square was home to a full size harp and a double-bass – both of which took over the back bedroom 27. At least 4 houses on the Square have spiral staircases one of which came from a Beeching Railway station. 28. One of the gardens is Southwark’s tiniest pet cemetery, being the final resting place of Cuddles the Caterpillar, Tess the Terrapin and two goldfish (Pi and Sis). 29. The Square believes it may be the site of an unsolved Victorian murder mystery. When one resident was having work done on her house, a large and interesting collection of bones surfaced. These were carried to the local police station; but after taking them in, the police returned them saying, in a rather non-committal way, that they had rather enough current day problems to worry about! 30. The Square has had its more ghostly moments. A resident recalls how an elderly lady on the Square had been very ill. On Christmas Day, on his way for a short walk before lunch, he encountered her pushing her shopping trolley along the top of the Square. “There are no shops open today,” he called out to her, but she trundled on ignoring him. It was only when he got back to his house, he was told by neighbours that the elderly lady had died at precisely midday – the very time he had passed her in the street. 31. Back in the late 1960s, it was very difficult for single women to get mortgages. Choumert Square properties were amongst the few places where the women-and-mortgage equation wasn’t a problem. 32. Many residents have strange stories about finding links to Choumert Square in other parts of the country (or even world!). Recently, a resident at an old friend’s wedding breakfast in Stamford was seated next to a man in his 60s who was a Tax specialist. As conversation flowed, she discovered he too had once lived in South London – and amazingly in the house next door to hers in Choumert Square. 33. One house on the Square until recently was better known as the Flowers Art Gallery. 34. Square residents are veterans of the London, New York and even Venice marathons, and have raised thousands of pounds for charity. 35. The Square is renowned for impromptu communal parties. In the late 80’s, it was not unusual for parties to end with the loud singing of hymns – a pivotal resident having acquired a large number of old church hymnals! 36. An elderly resident, who died in her late 90’s, was affectionately dubbed Head of Drinking. It was impossible for a visitor to escape her warm invitation to a glass of sherry. Our hostess, in true Choumert tradition, was also very fond of singing – and her parties were always elegant and entertaining - though a current resident remembers attending one where the rule was strictly: men upstairs and ladies down! 37. Indeed, the Square is still renowned for an eccentric mix of interests – it is not unknown for residents to gather at one house on Sunday afternoons to listen to 78s of yodelling songs on a wind-up gramophone. 38. Many people leave the Square to marry – at least one left to marry a millionaire! 39. The communal garden has twice been a focal point in residents’ wedding-day celebrations. 40. On 31st December 1999, the residents lit their own millennium beacon: the burner was stacked high with special fuel – this being a piece of underwear donated from each household and all thoroughly soaked with paraffin. The beacon blazed cheerfully throughout the night, while some 26 residents sat down to a Millennium Banquet at tables assembled for that purpose at No.1 41. In 2006, one distinguished Square resident published a book that recounted a more robust and learned version of the story of Rennes le Chateau, Father Sauniere Berenger and the Da Vinci Code. 42. That same resident, in true Harry Potter style, has reared a mandrake in her house. It resides in a pot on her window sill. (We haven’t heard it scream) 43. A former resident announced to a neighbour who was having his garden paved over that Choumert Square was built on the site of an early Roman Road. He urged his neighbour to check the ground for treasure trove before the paving stones were finally laid. Later, when on his own, the neighbour dug down and, to his amazement, uncovered a hoard of Roman coins….but his delight receded as he realised they were only replica coins, purchased from Past Times and planted there by the mischievous resident to wind him up by giving credence to his story of the Roman Road. 44. The longest resident in the Square – sadly now deceased – celebrated his 40th year at April Cottage with a surprise cake and champagne party provided by his neighbours. A dearly-loved local character, he is remembered by a bench in the communal garden inscribed in his memory, and by his house-bell which is now attached to the secret garden’s gate 45. Residents mostly love their fellow creatures. It is not unusual to find groups of neighbours huddled together to rescue a cat trapped in a neighbour’s house, or frantically waving brooms to chase cats away from the birds’ nests within the Square’s climbing jasmine and wisteria – or even balancing precariously on old ladders as they return damaged fledglings to their nest. 46. Molly, Tobias, Archie, Spot, Phoebe, William, Esmeralda, Alice, Higgins…..just a few of the many domestic cats in the Square, all known by their first names and addressed as such by fellow residents. When they pass on to the Feline Hereafter, their memory lingers on in communal garden areas. One cat, Albert, is remembered by the `Albertine’ rose planted in bottom garden; another, Sidney, by a white hydrangea; and Sam by an arbutus tree.

Choumert Square Open Day takes place this year on Sunday, June 8th between 1pm and 6pm.