Walking Words: Museum to Christmas Steps

A short walk from the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery down Park Row to the Christmas Steps. Poems by Gillie Harries

The Museum and Art Gallery

The Museum and Art Gallery's origins lie in the foundation, in 1823, of the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science and Art, sharing brand-new premises at the bottom of Park Street (a 100 yards (91 m) downhill from the current site) with the slightly older Bristol Literary and Philosophical Society. The neoclassical building was designed by Sir Charles Robert Cockerell (1788–1863), who was later to complete the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and build St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and was later used as the Freemasons Hall.

In April 1871 the Bristol Institution merged with the Bristol Library Society and on 1 April 1872 a new combined museum and library building in Venetian Gothic style was opened at the top of Park Street.

Christmas Steps

The name comes from the medieval Knifesmith Street. In Middle English the 'K' in 'knife' and 'knight' was sounded. It seems likely 'Knifesmith Street' became corrupted over time to 'Christmas Street'. In William Worcestre's 1480 itinerary of Bristol, he describes it as 'knyfesmythstrete aliter Cristmastrete' The street continued to be recorded as 'Christmas Street' in the official town rentals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is also how it is recorded in the Hearth Tax Books of Bristol in the 1660s.Christmas Street still runs from St John's Gate to St Bartholomew's Hospital at the bottom of 'Christmas Steps'.(wikipedia)