St. Peter's Stairs

Shown on Ordnance Survey Second Edition of 1898. Gave access to the church school and Yeoman Street from Borough Road. Still there. During the 1800s the town began to sprawl up the banks towards the higher ground in an attempt to escape the overcrowded riverside. Roads could not be built up the steep gradient and so a series of stairs connected the riverside with the high town. Dwellings, public houses, shops and workshops clustered around these stairs which Hutchinson (1776) described as busy, narrow, dirty alleys. The stairways are important to the character of the Conservation Area. Their names remind us of long gone people and businesses.