3-101-140 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

"The Golden Axe", St. Mary Axe, c1883. Pub advertising Dunville's Old Irish Whisky. 'This overhanging gabled house, of a kind fast becoming very rare in London, was destroyed in the course of the last year.' Description by Alfred Marks. St Mary Axe is a street running from Lime Street into Camomile Street in the City of London. According to Thornbury, the name 'St Mary Axe' came from a shop which had a sign of an axe, though the church of St Mary no longer exists. Today St Mary Axe is known as the site of 30 St Mary Axe, nicknamed The Gherkin, designed by Sir Norman Foster R.A.