It is the most substantial remaining part of the old manor house, and is a Grade II* listed building, located 100 metres (330 ft) east of Canonbury Square.

[1] In 1253 Ralph de Berners made a grant of "lands, rents and their appurtenances in Iseldone" to the Prior and Canons of St Bartholomew's – an Augustinian order – in Smithfield.

[6] It is uncertain how much of the Canonbury House that took shape in the 16th century was Prior Bolton's work, and most of its appearance is unknown, although its layout is still discernible today, with a range of buildings around a courtyard, and the six-storey Tower.

[16] The layout of Spencer's Canonbury House seems to have been east, south and west ranges surrounding a courtyard, with the Tower at the north-west corner, and stables nearby.

From 1616 to 1625 the House was leased to Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher and statesman, who was at first Attorney General and the year after Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.

From 1808, the facilities on offer included a shrubbery, bowling green, Dutch-pin and trapball grounds, and a butt used for firing practice by Volunteers and others.

[32] During the 18th century Canonbury House and Tower were let, part of them in separate rooms, and often as summer lodgings to gentlemen seeking a rural retreat close to London.

[1] Canonbury House was still enclosed by the brick wall that sloped down to the New River running through the Islington dairy fields, and was a restful spot for visitors seeking peace.

At Christmas 1762 the novelist, playwright and poet Oliver Goldsmith took a room in the House which he occupied for about eighteen months, allegedly often using it to hide from his creditors.

On Sunday, 26 June 1763 James Boswell noted in his London Journal: "I then walked out to Islington to Canonbury House, a curious old monastic building now let out in lodgings where Dr. Goldsmith stays.

[35] An earlier literary lodger was Samuel Humphreys whose libretti for three of Handel's early oratorios – Esther, Athalia and Deborah – date from 1730 to 1738, when he died in Canonbury House.

Another lodger was the printer and journalist Henry Sampson Woodfall,[4] who edited the Public Advertiser in which from 1769 for three years the Letters of Junius appeared, to the great discomfiture of the government.

Other lodgers included Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons; Deputy Harrison, for many years printer of the London Gazette; and Robert Horsfield, successor to Messrs. Knapton, Alexander Pope's booksellers.

[4] In 1767 the 8th Earl of Northampton's family fortunes were at a low ebb, and he leased the empty Canonbury House and adjoining grounds including the large fish pond[Note 3] for 61 years to Mr John Dawes, a City stockbroker.

Much of the Tudor plasterwork,[44] joinery[45] and stairs were left intact and can be seen today,[38] despite the removal of a chimneypiece and some wood panelling to the Northamptons’ country house Compton Wynyates.

[46] In the 1790s, a small mansion for which no records survive was built adjoining the Tower, partly filling the west side of the old manor house court.

He remonstrated, locked the door and pocketed the key, only to hear the landlady allowing the visitors to peep through the keyhole at the "author who was always in a tantrum when interrupted".

He wrote:[47]"I could not open my window lest I was stunned with shouts and noises from the cricket ground, the late quiet road beneath my window was alive with the tread of feet and the clack of tongues; and, to complete my misery, I found that my quiet retreat was absolutely a ‘show house’, the tower and its contents being shown to strangers at sixpence a head…So I bade adieu to Canonbury Castle, Merry Islington, and the haunts of poor Goldsmith without having advanced a single line in my labours.

M. V. Hughes (née Thomas) recalls her brothers attending school in the Tower, and boys playing tricks on passers-by from a window, in her memoir A London Child of the 1870s.

In 1924 the Francis Bacon Society was granted a tenancy of part of the gabled building east of the Tower, and made its headquarters there with its remarkable library.

The panelling and chimney pieces were brought back, cleaned and restored under the supervision of the Keeper of Woodwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and reinstated.

It is a detached Grade II listed building bearing the name “Canonbury House” above its front door, and is a private residence.

[77] Nearby is a small circular brick building with a conical tiled roof which was possibly a 17th-century former watchhouse, once used by watchmen to prevent bathing or fishing in the New River.

At the top just below the ceiling there are three curious carved figures like the figurehead of a ship and there is another, which has lost its head, at eye level in the centre, just below a pair of bellows.

There is strapwork ornament on the underside of the mantelpiece, and at either side Tudor roses in what might be garters prefigure or reflect the Rosicrucian interests of Sir Francis Bacon.

The chimneypiece again is elaborate, with figures of Faith (one knee exposed, one arm missing) and Hope in a border of flowers and abstract pattern.

Elsewhere it is a shell pattern, with at various intervals the arms of Spencer (argent two bars gemelle between three eagles displayed sable) and semi-grotesque heads.

The Tower, whose core is the central staircase, has a stairway in short straight flights and quarter landings, with the centre filled in with timber and plaster forming a series of cupboards.

At the top, the handrail newel and baluster are cut from sound oak beams found among the woodwork during the restoration of 1907–08: four centuries old but when sawn still fresh and sweet smelling.

The space below the roof forms a small room, once presumably a schoolroom, containing a list of the Kings and Queens of England, from Will Conq to Carolus qui longo tempore in rough Latin and Norman French hexameters.