3-096-114 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Canonbury Tower, c1879. Canonbury House is the name given to several buildings in the Canonbury area of Islington, North London which once formed the manor house of Canonbury, erected for the Canons of St Bartholomew's Priory between 1509 and 1532. The remains consist of Canonbury Tower and several buildings from the 1790s, some of which incorporate parts of the late 16th-century manor house. 'The Manor of Canonbury was an appendage of the Priory of St Bartholomew, and appears to have been given to the Priory by Ralph de Berners, in the time of Edward I. The manorial house, rebuilt by the last Prior, or last but one, of St Bartholomew, "Prior Bolton, with his bolt and ton," was at the dissolution of religious houses given by Henry VIII. to Thomas, Lord Cromwell. After several changes it came in 1570 into the possession of Sir John Spencer, who built the tower shown in our photographs...Here, according to Sir John Hawkins, not a very trustworthy authority, Goldsmith wrote the Vicar of Wakefield: "of the booksellers whom he styled his friends, Mr Newbery was one. This person has apartments in Canonbury House where Goldsmith often lay concealed from his creditors. Under a pressing necessity he there wrote his "Vicar of Wakefield"'. Description by Alfred Marks.