Strata SE1 SE1 Londoners' fifth favourite tall building, behind 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin), The Shard, The Leadenhall Building (The Cheesegrater) and One Canada Square (Canary Wharf). Strata SE1 Strata SE1, nicknamed "Razor" or "Electric Razor", is a , 43-storey building at Elephant and Castle in the London Borough of Southwark in London. Designed by BFLS (formerly Hamiltons), it is one of the tallest residential buildings in London and more than 1,000 residents live in its 408 flats. Strata SE1 is located on the site of Castle House, an early 1960s six-storey office building, which was the first commercial premises at
St Mary Axe may derive from a combination of the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a neighbouring tavern which prominently displayed a sign with an image of an axe, or simply from the church name itself, which may have come from the axes used by the Worshipful Company of Skinners, who were patrons. The sign of an axe is reported to have been present over the east end of the church. The street St Mary Axe is now most notable for the Baltic Exchange at No. 38, and the "Gherkin" at No. 30, a distinctively shaped skyscraper built on the site