In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Canonbury like this:
CANONBURY, an ancient manor in Islington, 2 miles N of St. Paul's, London. It belonged, at the Conquest, to Ralph de Berners; was given by him to the priory of St. Bartholomew; went, at the dissolution, to Lord Cromwell, afterwards Earl of Essex; and passed to successively the Earl of Warwick, Sir John Spencer, and Lord Compton, ancestor of the Marquis of Northampton. Canonbury House on it was built about 1362, as a mansion of the priors of St. Bartholomew; and Canonbury Tower, 17 feet square and 58 feet high, was add ed to the house either by Bolton the last prior, or by Sir John Spencer. ...
Newberry, the bookseller, Smart, the poet, Chambers, the cyclopædist, and Oliver Goldsmith had apartments in the tower; and the last is said to have written here his "Vicar of Wakefield." Much of the manor is now built upon; and two suites of buildings on it are called Canonbury-square and Canonbury-grove.
Canonbury through time
A Vision of Britain through Time includes a large library of local statistics for administrative units. For the best overall sense of how the area containing Canonbury has changed, please see our redistricted information for the modern district of Islington. More detailed statistical data are available under Units and statistics, which includes both administrative units covering Canonbury and units named after it.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Canonbury, in Islington and Middlesex | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/20697
Date accessed: 23rd May 2013
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