St Mary Axe was a mediaeval

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. (The church that remains in the modern-day St Mary Axe is St Andrew Undershaft.) Its full name was '' St Mary, St Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins'', and it was also sometimes referred to as ''St Mary Pellipar''. Its common name (also ''St Mary'' r ''Marie''''at the Axe'') derives from the sign of an axe over the east end of the church. The church's patrons were the Skinners' Company. According to John Stow in ''A Survey of London'' (1603), the name derived from "the signe of an Axe, over against the East end thereof". However, a document dated to the early reign of King Henry VIII describes a holy relic held in the church; "An axe, one of the two that the eleven thousand Virgins were beheaded with". This refers to the legend that Saint Ursula, when returning to Britain from a

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

accompanied by eleven thousand

handmaiden A handmaiden, handmaid or maidservant is a personal maid or female servant. Depending on culture or historical period, a handmaiden may be of slave status or may be simply an employee. However, the term ''handmaiden'' generally implies lowly st ...

s, had refused to marry a

Hunnish The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

chief and was executed along with her whole entourage on the site of modern

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

, in about 451 AD. It was situated just north of Leadenhall Street on a site now occupied by Fitzwilliam House. First mentioned as ''St Mary apud Ax'', it belonged for a time to the nearby Priory of St Helens. At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was still extant but in decline, and in 1562 it was offered to Spanish

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

refugees as a place of worship. Three years later, however, it was unused and in a state of disrepair. Shortly afterwards it was pulled down and its parish was united with that of the neighbouring St Andrew Undershaft. The church gave its name to a street of the same name, which links Leadenhall Street with Camomile Street and Houndsditch. No. 30 was the location of the

Baltic Exchange The Baltic Exchange (incorporated as The Baltic Exchange Limited) is a membership organisation for the maritime industry, and freight market information provider for the trading and settlement of physical and derivative contracts. It was locate ...

until it was destroyed by an

IRA Ira or IRA may refer to: *Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name *Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name *Iran, UNDP code IRA Law *Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...

bomb in 1992; the Exchange is now located at No. 38 just to the north of its former address. On the site of the old Baltic Exchange now stands

30 St Mary Axe 30 St Mary Axe (previously known as the Swiss Re Building and informally known as the Gherkin) is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. ...

, a skyscraper known colloquially as the Gherkin because of its distinctive shape."The London Encyclopaedia" Hibbert,C;Weinreb,D;Keay,J: London, Pan Macmillan, 1983 (rev 1993,2008) The street of St Mary Axe was also the location of the sorcerer's shop in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta ''

The Sorcerer ''The Sorcerer'' is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of ''The Sorcerer'' is based on a Christmas story, ''An Elixir of Lo ...

'', which documents the former pronunciation "Simmery Axe". The church that remains in the modern-day St Mary Axe is St Andrew Undershaft.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Mary Axe, London 12th-century church buildings in England 1565 disestablishments in England Churches in the City of London Demolished churches in London Former buildings and structures in the City of London