6 and 7 Christmas Steps, Bristol, City of Bristol

Summary

Two timber-framed houses of C17 date with possible earlier origins. The C18 additions to the road have C19 fronts with C20 shopfronts.

Description

A pair of attached houses of C17 date or earlier with C18 additions and later alterations including C19 shopfronts.

MATERIALS: timber-framed with later brick additions. The rear elevations are rendered. The main roofs are covered in pantiles.

PLAN: double depth on plan and of three storeys.

EXTERIOR: re-fronted in the late-Georgian style, this pair of buildings is each a single-window range of painted brick to the façade. Both have C19 shop fronts with a left-hand door, fascias, cornices and stall risers. To the left, the former shop window to 6 has timber glazing bars and reeded pilasters to each end and below the fascia. To the right, 7 has a plate-glass shop window and a modern part-glazed shop door with overlight. The first-floor openings have ashlar voussoirs and the left window (to 6) is an eight-over-eight sash. The other windows to each floor are modern casements. To the rear are extensions of various date and size. To the right of 6, there is a stair tower rising above the shallow pitched full-width kitchen extension. To the left is a two-storey projection under a flat roof, at the location of a possible former stair turret to 7. The rear roof to 6 and 7 has been replaced with a modern flat roof.

INTERIOR: each building has a front room at lower level than the back room with stairs between. Each front room has a chamfered cross beam of large scantling.

6 Christmas Steps: the right end of the chamfered cross beam has been truncated to make way for a staircase and is propped. The back wall of the front room is principally a former chimney breast with a doorway inserted to the left. Above the doorway, facing the back room is an exposed stone corbel to a hearth for the fireplace in the room above. The back room has a deep-chamfered cross beam with step stop to one end and a rear staircase in turret, which is enclosed within a modern kitchen extension to the rear. The adjoining wall with 7 Christmas Steps above the front staircase has some exposed timber framing.

7 Christmas Steps: the large chamfered cross beam to the front shop has a straight cut stop to the right end and is supported by a modern pillar. There is a wide timber bressummer above the shopfront window. Above and behind the steps at the back of the room, set closely to each other, are a cross beam and a boxed beam or steel. The cross beam has been cut through for the insertion of the staircase to the first floor. The back room has a chamfered cross beam with a step stop to one end and the other end set into a chimney breast with a bressummer below. To the rear left of the room is a doorway into the former stair turret. It has an ovolo-moulded door architrave with plain stops and, along with the modestly moulded doorway on the floor above, is of C17 date. The first floor has exposed timber framing to the stairwell and front room. The chamfered beam to the front room is morticed and tenoned into the wall plate of the wall adjoining 6 Christmas Steps. The other end of the beam is set in a chimney breast that has a fireplace with oak bressummer and a daintily decorated C18 hob grate. The rear first-floor room also has a chamfered cross beam with step stops and is morticed and tenoned into a chamfered post on the 6 Christmas Steps end.

History

6 and 7 Christmas Steps were built by the C17 as part of a row on the south side of a steep alley. The steps were improved or ‘steppered, done and finished’ in 1669 at the expense of Jonathan Blackwell, Sheriff of Bristol. The three sets of steps are shown on Millerd’s Map of 1673 and the road is marked as Queens Hill with houses lining both sides. Millerd’s depiction of the buildings on the south side indicates that they were gabled at right angle to the road. Rocque’s Map of Bristol of 1750 shows the adjacent ‘Alms Houses’ (Foster’s Almshouses, listed at Grade II*) alongside the top section of steps and 6 and 7 were probably rebuilt or extended closer to the road edge by this time. The rear wing of 7 Christmas Steps may contain fabric from a medieval stair turret which was incorporated into the house in C17.

The buildings were re-fronted in the later C18 or early C19 and they are shown on Ashmead’s Map of 1828 as part of a row of four buildings on ‘Queen Street Steps’. The adjacent almshouses were subsequently rebuilt and Ashmead’s Map of 1855 shows another building attached to the row (probably 8 Queen Street), which was eventually replaced and incorporated within a further addition to the almshouses in the late C19 (9 Christmas Steps). The name ‘Christmas Steps’ may have been in use from the late C18 and relates to the proximity to Christmas Street, but historic plans of Bristol do not show it named as such until the late C19.

Goad’s late-C19 fire insurance plan of Bristol shows that 6 and 7 were part of a row of ‘brick and timber’ shops. 6 was a shop and 7 was a restaurant with further timber structures extending across most of the back garden. In 1876, Carlos Trower lived at 7 Christmas Steps with his wife Annie who gave birth to their daughter Celia on 17 March of that year. Carlos was a prolific high-rope performer who had adopted the stage name of ‘The African Blondin’, after the renowned rope walker Charles Blondin (1824-1897). Trower is thought to have self-liberated from enslavement in America as a child and travelled to Scotland in around 1861. He joined the Exhibition Circus troupe and began performing on high-ropes and toured numerous public events throughout the UK, Europe and the US in the following years. Trower drew considerable attention from the press and often performed for charitable causes including for the emancipation of enslaved people. One of his last engagements before his death was at Colston Hall (the Bristol Beacon), very close to Christmas Steps.

The timber structures in the rear garden of 7 are shown as part of the principal building on early C20 maps and a town plan of 1955 but have since been removed, probably when the building was restored in 1968, the roof to the rear of 6 and 7 was also replaced at this time with a flat roof. In 2022, 7 retains a commercial use to the ground floor.

Reasons for Listing

6 and 7 Christmas Steps, a pair of C17 buildings, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an evolved pair of C17 buildings, with possible earlier origins as a single dwelling with a stair turret, and with C18/C19 additions to the front to provide part of the distinctive row of buildings on the south side of Christmas Steps;
* built in the local vernacular tradition with timber framing, stop-chamfered beams and stone fireplaces;
* the ground floor shops with C19 shopfronts have good quality design and present a rare surviving example of Bristol’s historic commercial character.

Historic interest:

* for the association with Carlos Trower, professionally known as ‘The African Blondin', a high rope artist of national repute in the late C19 who lived at 7 Christmas Steps in the 1870s;
* as a part of one of the best surviving medieval streets in Bristol which have largely otherwise been lost to development and bomb damage.

External Links

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