‘These were the arms of Sir Walter Dennys of Gloucestershire, who was made a Knight by bathing at the creation of Arthur, Prince of Wales in Nov. 1489, and died Sept. 1, 21 Henry VII., and was buried at the church of Olviston in Gloucestershire. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Rich Weston, Knt., to which family Canonbury House formerly belonged. The carving is therefore 280 years old.’ The latter part of the inscription is clearly erroneous, as the manor-house was not in lay hands till after the dissolution. Mr. Nelson thought that these arms were placed here by some descendant of the Dennys or Weston family, who might afterwards have lived at Canonbury--perhaps one of the Comptons, Joan, a daughter of Sir Walter, having married into that family. The Comptons did not come into possession till 1610, when William, the second lord, succeeded Sir John Spencer, having married Elizabeth, his daughter and sole heiress. I need hardly say that they were the direct ancestors of the present Marquis of Northampton, who still owns the property. A famous galleried inn, the Old Bell,[67] Holborn, now almost unique of its kind, has, imbedded in the front, the sculptured arms of Fowler of Islington, namely, azure, on a chevron argent, between three herons or, as many crosses formée gules. They are surmounted by an esquire’s helmet, with a crest, which seems to be an eagle’s head with a sprig of some sort in its beak. The first man of this family who made any mark was Thomas Fowler, lord of the manor of Bernersbury[68] or Barnsbury, Islington, in 1548. From him descended Sir Thomas Fowler, knight, Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Middlesex, and apparently one of the jurors at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, at Winchester, in 1603. If the tradition of Sir Walter’s residence at Islington is true, they must have lived within a stone’s throw of each other at one time. Before being knighted, Thomas Fowler had married Jane, daughter of Gregory Charlet, citizen and tallow-chandler, who bore him two sons. His second wife, to whom he was married at St. James’s Church, Clerkenwell, on March 17, 1604, was Mary, widow of Sir John Spencer, of Althorp--not to be confused with his neighbour the rich merchant of Crosby Place and Canonbury, who lived on till 1609. His elder son, also Thomas, was made a baronet, but the title died out with him in 1656.