Before we quit this quaint neighbourhood let us peep into the venerable Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. What an idea it gives one of the splendour of the old priory church, of which it formed but a part, little more than the choir remaining! Much ‘restoration’ is in progress here, and it is difficult at a glance to distinguish between the genuine Norman work and the ingenious nineteenth-century Norman which has lately been added. Fortunately the fine perpendicular oriel on the south side of the triforium has so far escaped intact. It was probably inserted by Prior Bolton (who died in 1532), and has on it, carved in stone, expressive of his name, a tun pierced by a bird-bolt, or arrow. The rebus occurs again on the spandrel of a Tudor doorway which leads into the modern vestry. This Prior seems to have taken pleasure in building, and in seeing his name thus perpetuated.[65] He reconstructed the manor-house of Canonbury, Islington, north of the parish church, which had been given to the convent by Ralph de Berners, and as early as the year 1253 is enumerated among his possessions. Here is also to be found the Prior’s rebus, on a doorway inside No. 6, Canonbury Place, which, with No. 7, is now used for a girls’ school. It also formerly appeared cut in stone on two parts of the wall originally connected with the old brick tower, which is so picturesque and so full of interesting associations. It is, however, generally thought that the tower, as we see it, was built under the direction of Sir John Spencer, the wealthy merchant, afterwards the purchaser of Crosby Hall, who bought this place from Thomas Lord Wentworth in 1570. Eleven years afterwards Queen Elizabeth visited him here, and towards the end of the century he made great alterations in the building. Two of the rooms attached to Canonbury Tower are finely panelled from floor to ceiling; the very handsome carved chimney-piece in the upper room bears the arms of Sir John Spencer. Canonbury House is now occupied by a Constitutional Club. Parts of the building have been modernized of late years, but the panelled rooms are still much in their original state. The pretty strip of garden at the back contains fruit-trees which Goldsmith may have seen, when he lodged here in the summer of 1767. We must not forget that the original building occupied a considerable part of Canonbury Place. We have evidence of this in Prior Bolton’s rebus at No. 6; and traces of Sir John Spencer’s work are to be seen in this and the adjoining houses, where there are no less than five richly-stuccoed ceilings, two of them with the date 1599. Here also, inside the entrance, are the arms[66] of Sir Walter Dennys, carved in oak. They were formerly over a fireplace, and when moved to their present position, many years ago, the following inscription was placed underneath: