Canonbury Tower

Canonbury Tower stands in Canonbury Place, Islington, a Tudor brick tower that is the oldest building in the borough. It forms part of the remains of the old manor house built between 1509 and 1532 for the Canons of St Bartholomew’s Priory. The tower is Grade II* listed and sits 100 metres east of Canonbury Square. Several later buildings cluster around it, including a 1790s house that still carries the name Canonbury House. The site once belonged to the de Berners family before passing to the Augustinian order in 1253. The tower has been home to figures such as Thomas Cromwell, John Dudley, Sir Francis Bacon and Oliver Goldsmith. Prior William Bolton added the six-storey structure in the 1520s, though he died in 1532 before its completion. The flat roof once offered wide views across Middlesex and the City of London. After the Dissolution, Henry VIII granted the manor to Cromwell, then it passed to John Dudley and later to John Spencer, who modernised the interiors with oak panelling and stucco ceilings. Visitors find the tower standing among later buildings arranged around a courtyard. Two octagonal Tudor garden houses survive in the walled grounds, one of which is still used today. The flat roof provides a quiet vantage point over the surrounding rooftops. The tower’s brick walls enclose a small but historic space where earlier owners once walked. The area remains part of Canonbury Place, a quiet corner of Islington that preserves fragments of its past.