Christmas Steps is a historic street in the city centre of Bristol, England. Name 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 [alius] 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'. The end near the hospital is now bisected by the widened Rupert Street and the very end part, in front of St Bartholomew's, is pedestrianised. In 1480, Worcestre described the road now called 'Christmas Steps' as 'Stypstrete' (Steep Street) it being 'the road on the west side of the church of St Bartholomew of Bristol, going to St Michael's Church' According to the late-seventeenth century stone plaque at the top of the steps, the street was renamed 'Queene Streete' during the mayoralty of Sir Robert Yeamans (1669/70) after it was 'steppered down' by the wine merchant, Jonathan Blackwell. A Bristol chronicle of c.1687 confirms that 'Jonathan Blackwell, vintner, new made the stepps on St Michael’s Hill, and finished it in 1669, at his own costs, being called by the name of Queen-street. The claim is repeated in an eighteenth-century Bristol chronicle: 'Jonathan Blackwell Vintner new erected and built Saint Michaels Hill steps at his own costs and called it by the name of Queen Street'. It is unclear from these statements whether the street had steps before 1669 since 'new made' and 'new erected' can refer to both an entirely new building work and the renovation of an existing one. In the seventeenth century, Christmas Steps were sometimes referred to as Lunsford's Stairs. This was in honour of a Cavalier officer Colonel Henry Lunsford, who was shot through the heart on Steep Street on 26 July 1643 while taking part in the Storming of Bristol during the English Civil War. The steps are labelled 'Queene Str' in the 1673 Millerd Map of Bristol and the updated 1728 version of Millerd's map. The Rocque Map of 1743 labels the steps 'Queen Str. or Stipe Str.' The