St Mary Axe

Map

The overlays that highlight 17th century London features are approximate and derived from Wenceslaus Hollar’s maps:

Open location in Google Maps: 51.514595, -0.080887

5 Annotations

First Reading

Rex Gordon  •  Link

Stow's Survey (Lime Street Ward):

In St. Marie street had ye of old time a parish church of St. Marie the Virgin, St. Ursula, and the eleven thousand Virgins, which church was commonly called St. Marie at the Axe, of the sign of an axe, over against the east end thereof, or St. Marie Pellipar, of a plot of ground lying on the north side thereof, pertaining to the Skinners in London. This parish, about the year 1565, was united to the parish church of St. Andrew Undershaft, and so was St. Mary at the Axe suppressed and letten out to be a warehouse for a merchant.

Rex Gordon  •  Link

The site of St. Mary Axe ...

... is now occupied by the Gherkin! See Wikipedia under 30 St. Mary Axe for photos.

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

Mary (St.) Axe, a street and parish in Lime Street Ward, united to the parish church, St . Andrew's Undershaft, about the year 1565. The street runs from Leadenhall Street to Houndsditch. The south end is chiefly let out in offices; towards Houndsditch it is chiefly inhabited by Jews. The church at the corner is St. Andrew's Undershaft.

In St. Marie Street had ye of old time a parish church of St. Marie the Virgin, St. Ursula and the eleven thousand Virgins, which church was commonly called St. Marie at the Axe, of the sign of an Axe, over against the east end thereof, or St. Mary Pellipar, of a plot of ground lying on the north side thereof, pertaining to the Skinners, in London. This parish, about the year 1565, was united to the parish church of St. Andrew Undershaft, and so was St. Mary at the Axe, suppressed and letten out to be a warehouse for a merchant.—Stow, p. 61.

Stow is not quite correct in this. The church derived its particular designation of St. Mary Axe from a holy relic it possessed: "an axe, oon of the iij that the xjmj Virgyns were be hedyd wt.” Stow has also omitted to mention that this church, Santa Maria de Hacqs, was given in 1562 to the Spanish Protestant refugees for divine service.

Jews from St. Mary Axe, for jobs so wary,
That for old clothes they'd even axe St. Mary.
Rejected Addresses (Imitation of Crabbe).

---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1664