St. Mary's Axe in London is named after the medieval Church of St. Mary the Virgin, St. Ursula, and the 11,000 Virgins, which once stood on the street. The "Axe" suffix is believed to come from a holy relic, specifically an axe, said to be kept in the church, which was used in the martyrdom of St. Ursula, or alternatively, from a prominent sign of an axe displayed on a nearby building.
Mary Axe, derived from a sign near the church's east side (Stow). However, a document written during the reign of Henry VIII suggests a different history of its name. The church, dedicated to 11,000 martyred virgins, supposedly contained the three axes that were used in their executions (Harben).
In the song "My Name Is John Wellington Wells", the lyric renders his address as "Number Seventy, Simmery Axe"; this reflects the fact that some Londoners pronounce the street's name as "S'M'ry Axe" rather than enunciating it fully.
The Gherkin, skyscraper in London that was designed by the architecture firm Foster and Partners and completed in 2004. Formally known as 30 St Mary Axe, the building has become better known by its colloquial name “The Gherkin,” which comes from its shape being similar to a gherkin fruit.
The Gherkin, otherwise known as 30 St Mary Axe, is one of the capital's most famous buildings. It's a feature of the London skyline and home to offices, a restaurant and a cocktail bar.
Does Anne Boleyn's Ghost haunts the Tower of London?
Anne Boleyn – The Headless Queen
Few figures loom as large in the Tower's ghostly history as Anne Boleyn, the ill-fated second wife of Henry VIII. Executed on Tower Green in 1536, her spirit is said to wander the Tower grounds, sometimes headless, carrying her own severed noggin in her arms.
The Big Smoke is perhaps the most well known of London's nicknames. London was once an industrial hotbed, with many factories all over the city. A culmination of these and the fuels used to heat residential homes caused London to be an extremely smoky city.
Why is there no water in the moat at the Tower of London?
The Duke took the momentous step of having the moat drained and turned into a defensive dry ditch, or 'fosse'. The Tower's moat has been dry (except for accidental flooding) ever since.
We often see GH in other words, English has borrowed.
Gherkin is also a borrowed word, but it didn't have H when borrowed from Dutch even though the Dutch had GH words, but the H later appeared. We often add these words to a keyword sentence in the clinic to help with decoding and spelling practice.
Most North American English dialects merge the lax vowels with the tense vowels before /r/, so "marry" and "merry" have the same vowel as "mare", "mirror" has the same vowel as "mere", "forest" has the same vowel as the stressed form of "for", and "hurry" has the same vowel as "stir" as well as that found in the second ...
Why do British people pronounce St. John as Sin Gin?
English forenames or surnames which include the the St or saint usually entered the English language from French many centuries ago. Examples would be StJean or StClair. They were originally pronounced the French way - then lightly anglicised to to sin-jin or sinclair.
Pudding Lane was lined with butchers' stalls (Bebbington 120). Bebbington notes that in 1402 the butchers were granted an alley where they might dispose of entrails known as puddings. Pudding Lane ran conveniently towards the river from Eastcheap.
Over in the City of London, you'll find Watling Street. Connecting Queen Victoria Street to St Paul's Cathedral (and offering a pretty gorgeous view in the process), Watling Street puts forward a fairly convincing case as the oldest street in London.
The updated map, included in the report shows (using red markings for submerged areas), shows that by 2050, areas of the UK most likely to be affected by serious flooding and/or being completely under water include: London's River Thames area (flagged as a danger zone).
While subjective, surveys and user opinions frequently name Scotland (especially Glasgow/Dundee) as having the UK's best tap water, followed by the South West (Bristol) and Yorkshire (Leeds), often due to softer water; conversely, areas like London, Birmingham, and Norwich are often cited for harder, less palatable water.
In British slang, £25 is called a "pony" primarily because British soldiers returning from India during the Raj era adopted the term from the Indian 25-rupee note, which featured a pony (horse) on it. This term became part of UK slang, alongside other Indian-influenced terms like "monkey" for £500 (from a 500-rupee note with a monkey).
Queen Anne Boleyn's direct bloodline ended with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. However, another branch of the Boleyn family line lives on. Anne Boleyn's sister, Mary Boleyn, gave birth to several children: Catherine Carey, Henry Carey, and Unknown male Stafford.
The Bloody Tower is most strongly associated with the supposed murder of the 12-year-old Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, in 1483. Tradition says that they stayed in these rooms on the orders of their uncle, the future Richard III.
