For all of our fascination with it, Tudor London has remarkably few survivals. The Great Fire of London, the Blitz and centuries of redevelopment have seen to that.
But tucked away on a quiet street in Islington, Canonbury Tower is one such survivor – a six-story brick tower from the early 16th century, rising above the surrounding streets almost unchanged.
Thomas Cromwell wrote letters from here. A young woman named Elizabeth Spencer was once locked inside by her father, only to be lowered from its windows in a baker’s basket to elope with a baron. And yet so many people walking past it don’t even know it exists.
This is the remarkable story of Islington’s oldest building, and one of the most improbable survivors of Tudor London.
This blog is part of my Building of the Week series, where I explore a different remarkable story each week.
Canonbury Tower’s origins – Prior Bolton’s building
Canonbury Tower’s story starts with a man called William Bolton, who was Prior of St Bartholomew’s in the 16th century. Bolton’s priory also gave the area its name. It was owned by the Canons of St Bartholomew’s: Canon’s Burgh, burgh meaning a fortified town.
In Canonbury, he had a mansion built on the highest part of Islington Hill, which included the tower, and had views over to St Paul’s.
His mark can still be seen in a couple of places on the estate: a coat of arms with a crossbow bolt passing through a barrel, which was his rebus – a visual pun on his name (bolt + tun = Bolton) – is etched into one of the walls.
Incidentally, you can still see Prior Bolton’s oriel window in the Priory Church of Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, which also includes the crossbow symbol. Bolton allegedly had the window installed to keep an eye on the monks.
The tower itself is something of a mystery. It stands in the north-west corner of the original courtyard, and it contains nothing but a staircase with a small room at the top.
What is notable, though, is what the tower is built out of. When we think of Tudor England we tend to think of timber buildings, largely because brick was so expensive. This imposing brick tower, visible for miles around, was a huge statement of wealth.
Home to Tudor England’s power brokers
If you’ve ever read or watched Wolf Hall, you’ll know that by the late 1520s, a man from lowly origins named Thomas Cromwell had risen to the very top of Tudor politics.
As Henry VIII’s chief minister, Cromwell was instrumental in orchestrating the break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries that would reshape England.
Cromwell used Canonbury as a rural retreat from the court, and we know he wrote letters from here during the 1530s. St Bartholomew’s was one of the last monasteries to be dissolved, but in 1539 it fell, and Cromwell was granted ownership of the manor and its surrounding land.
He didn’t have long to enjoy it. In 1540, Cromwell was executed, his downfall sealed in part by Henry VIII’s disastrous fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves, which Cromwell had brokered. Income from the manor was even used to help pay for Henry’s annulment settlement.
Canonbury’s next notable owner fared no better. John Dudley, the power behind the throne of the young Edward VI, was granted the manor, only to be executed himself in 1553 after his failed attempt to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne.
The building might be a survivor, but many of its owners were not.
The love story of Canonbury Tower
Over the following decades, the Tower would be home to many wealthy owners. One of the most notable was Sir John Spencer – one of the wealthiest men in Elizabethan London, so rich he was known as Rich Spencer, and also Lord Mayor of the City of London.
From this time we get one of Canonbury Tower’s best stories. Tradition goes that Spencer’s daughter Eliza fell in love with William Compton, a baron, but a deeply indebted one.
When Spencer found out about the relationship, he was furious. He locked his daughter in the tower – but Lord Compton didn’t give up. He disguised himself as a mere baker’s boy, drove a cart to Islington, and Eliza was lowered from the tower in a bread basket (how this didn’t break, I have no idea…). They drove away and married – but Spencer disinherited his daughter.
They only reconciled years later following an intervention by Queen Elizabeth I herself. The couple inherited Sir John Spencer’s vast estate and wealth. They got their happy ending.
True or not? Who knows. But the marriage certainly took place, and the Compton family – now known as the Marquesses of Northampton – have owned the tower ever since, making it one of London’s longest-held properties.
Francis Bacon & the Freemasons
But they were far from the last notable residents of Canonbury. The family took the wrong side in the English Civil War, and found themselves heavily in debt. They began leasing the property out, and never lived in it again.
In the early 17th century, the mansion was leased to none other than Sir Francis Bacon, one of the most important philosophers of the era, and also Lord Chancellor.
Bacon’s connection to the tower lives on in its current use as a Masonic Research Centre. His writings on the pursuit of hidden knowledge became deeply influential in Freemasonry, and the tower today houses a library and meeting rooms for the Metropolitan Grand Lodge.
There’s even a Masonic conspiracy associated with the tower. In one of its rooms are inscriptions of abbreviated names of British monarchs, going from William the Conqueror to Charles I. But between Elizabeth I and James I, someone has gouged out the letter ‘F’.
This fed into a persistent (if far-fetched) theory about Bacon: that he was Elizabeth’s secret son, the true heir to the throne, and even the real author of Shakespeare’s plays.
Is Canonbury Tower really Islington’s oldest building?
When I was researching this blog, I kept thinking: is a Tudor tower really Islington’s oldest building? The borough literally borders the City of London, which is thousands of years old.
The answer is a ‘yes, but it’s complicated’. There are other contenders, some with older origins. The oldest is the Clerk’s Well – a 12th century relic which gave ‘Clerkenwell’ its name. But it’s not a building.
Then there’s St John’s Gate in Clerkenwell which dates to 1504, and the Charterhouse, which goes back even further to the 14th. But both have been heavily restored – St John’s Gate in the Victorian Era, the Charterhouse during Tudor times and after the Blitz.
Canonbury Tower, by contrast, has stood largely unaltered since the early 16th century. For this reason, it’s commonly described as the oldest building in Islington.
So why did the tower survive?
The original Canonbury House was a large complex – with various buildings, and even gardens and a small park.
But bit by bit it was dismantled. By the late 18th century, the Tudor mansion was being carved up into lodgings and gradually replaced by the Georgian terraces that now make up Canonbury Place. We can see this in the light green building now attached to the tower – though some of these buildings incorporated Tudor fragments.
This was part of a city-wide trend: old manor houses demolished to make way for terraced streets to house a growing population.
Yet the tower survived – most likely because it could be absorbed into this more modern usage, rather than obstructing it. That, too, is one of the reasons the tower is so often missed: it blends so perfectly into the Georgian streetscape.
A fascinating survival. Its owners beheaded, indebted, associated with conspiracies; its Tudor mansion carved up, buildings demolished and rebuilt around it. And the tower, still to this day, quietly endures.
If you’re exploring Islington, read my guide to Islington’s museums.
Read more building of the Week posts
Córdoba Synagogue: Modest Survivor of the Spanish Inquisition
Córdoba Synagogue is one of only three surviving medieval synagogue in Spain – and a beautiful mudéjar building that survived pogroms, expulsions, and five centuries of erasure.
Highbury Stadium, Islington: Football as an Architectural Statement
How Arsenal’s Highbury became England’s most remarkable football ground, and why its Art Deco facades still stand today as a living monument.
St Mary’s Church, Battle: the Norman church in the shadow of England’s most famous battlefield
St Mary the Virgin is one of Sussex’s most rewarding medieval churches, hiding surviving wall paintings, crusaders’ crosses and a fascinating history in the shadow of England’s most famous battlefield.
Thanks for visiting my blog! This post may contain affiliate links - which means if you make a purchase, I'll receive a small commission, at no extra cost to yourself. This helps me keep this site running for free.