In front of the hotel is a statue by David Backhouse, entitled, The Cloaked Horseman. He gazes across the road towards the newly razed buildings of Nelson St, no doubt wondering what it’s all about and I pat his steed in sympathy, before wondering if really he is staring in longing at the city wall that runs along it and the old town beyond. This strip doesn’t seem to suit him very well.
I turn right and head into a red-brick tunnel that’s lined with scratched one-way glass. It dares me to check my reflection, but I wonder how many office workers might be laughing at me on the other side if I do.
The tunnel opens out and I find myself in a mini set-piece of old England. Cobbled street is afoot tumbledown buildings, with narrow turnings leading off left and right. At the corner of one of these, leans a timber-framed building that is said to date back to the 13th century. For the best part of the 20th it’s been a fish and chip shop and its present day incarnation as Bobby’s Fish Bar continues this tradition, with photos of Che Guevara and Castro on the walls, adding a Latin twist.
Next to this is St Bartholomew’s Court, a series of courtyards and corridors that once housed Bristol Grammar School in the 1500’s followed by Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1767. A list of companies displayed at the gate implies it’s now an office complex, if a modest one. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Centre Gate, an uncompromising corporate block that was somehow allowed to be dumped right at the foot of the Christmas Steps, blocking all view of it from the road. The building’s only redeeming feature seems to be that it offers another tunnel that leads to the centre, thereby helping to retain the intimate atmosphere of this microcosm.
Cynicisms aside, I finally take a walk up the famous steps, my soles adding their bit to the 300 years of friction that has carved them into gently rippling shapes.
I see doors beneath doors, sealed up with decades of cobweb while poky windows look out from above rows of signage that dangles into the street. Beneath these are myriad buildings, all jostling together to stand out from the crowd. In fact, there are so many different shops here that its difficult to take them all in while watching my feet on the buckled steps and cobbled pavement. The fact that they are particularly niche also means that it takes more than a passing glance to figure out just what they’re all about and I’m forced to balance on a step as I take each one in.
The steamy windows of Harry Blades and Angry Daves, a hairdresser clothing store combo, sit opposite a vintage emporium simply entitled SHOP. Further on, a wine merchant waves to his neighbourly cider makers over at Bristol Cider Shop and a man deals in stamp collections by lamplight, next to the premises of a master bowmaker.
As I gaze into each window, I get the feeling that these places are as much hidey-holes for the shopkeepers to pursue their passions as they are for the public to buy goods and as an afterthought, I wonder if maybe that’s what sums up the nature of a true independent business.
Towards the top of the steps I find a series of stone alcoves known as the Almsgatherers Niches, where the poor from almshouses in the area would come to beg. Above them is a plaque stating how the steps were ‘steppered done and finished September 1669.’
Then I’m on Colston St again with Foster’s Almshouses on my left and an even steeper set of steps that run up past Zero Degrees to Perry Road. From the top, the view is a unique one, with quaint rooftops and little windows giving way to the grey stacks of town and the occasional church spire all framed by a curving iron arch that announces ‘To Christmas Steps’ in gold lettering.
Across the road and the trajectory of the steps seems to continue, with a short path that slices between the two art galleries on Perry Road. It brings me to Lower Church Lane, a narrow one-way road that meanders its way past back gardens, while immediately opposite are a set of blistered stone steps with black bollards sticking out like partially uprooted trees. I dodge past them and suddenly feel as though I’ve ambled out to the countryside.
Before me is the church of St Michael’s on the Mount Without (so called because it was built outside of the city wall), which lies quietly abandoned and half covered in ivy. A small garden and cemetery forms a triangle in front of it, creating two paths. I take the left and follow it to a carved cross in the wall of the church, framed by winter trees and wide angled steps. Only the tags scrawled on the cross give it away, an infallible signature of the city and a confirmation of the church’s demise.
Around the corner, flaking steps lead to a boarded up front door. A beer can sits by the side.
The path continues round the church, opening out for a view up to its spire. Then I arrive full circle, looking back down to where I had started and a picturesque scene that is both charming and melancholic. Gothic spiked fencing curves round the church garden and under yellowed lime trees, which cast shadows across the ground and on orange fallen leaves. A red house in the background adds to the spectrum of colour.
Behind me the path joins on to St Michaels Hill and snakes its way up the rest of the ‘mount’ to the heady heights of Cotham and out of the quarter.
My journey here is done.
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- Christmas Steps
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- Almsgatherers Niches
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- St Michael’s on the Mount Without
AJ Rankin 