The Canonbury House tea-gardens, a quiet and unpretending resort of Londoners, derive a certain antiquarian interest from their situation within the ancient park attached to Canonbury House, the mansion built by the Priors of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, for their summer residence. Houses in Canonbury Place, first erected about 1770, occupy the site of the old mansion, though a substantial relic still exists in Canonbury Tower, built in the sixteenth century, and during the last century let out for summer lodgings to various tenants, the best known of whom was Oliver Goldsmith. About 1754 a small ale-house was built by a Mr. Benjamin Collins on the eastern side of the mansion. This afterwards came into the possession of James Lane, who made additions to the premises, utilising, it would seem, a range of tiled outhouses on the east of the house which were supposed to have originally been its stables. The place had a good reputation and became much frequented as a tea-garden under the name of Canonbury House. Lane died in 1783, and about 1785 the tavern was taken by a Mr. Sutton, who died soon after, leaving the premises to his wife. The “Widow Sutton” enlarged the tavern, which was then known as Canonbury House Tavern (or Canonbury Tavern), laid out a bowling green and improved the tea-gardens. The house was much used for the dinners of Societies. The gardens, which at this time occupied about four acres, were almost entirely situated within the old park wall of the Priors of St. Bartholomew’s, and the wall on the east divided them from the open fields. The old fish-pond of the Priors was also connected. The _Sunday Ramble_ describes Canonbury House in 1797 as “a place of decent retreat for tea and sober treatment.” In 1810 an Assembly was established at the tavern, and about 1811 the grounds consisted of a shrubbery and bowling green with Dutch-pin and trap-ball grounds and butts for ball-firing used by the Volunteers. The old tiled outhouses were used as a bake-house for the pastry and rolls till 1840, when they were pulled down. About 1823 the builders had invaded the rural neighbourhood of Canonbury, but the tea-gardens continued to be frequented as a pleasant resort till 1843, or later. At sometime between 1843 and 1866 the Canonbury Tavern was rebuilt. It now stands on the north side of Canonbury Place, a little to the east of Canonbury Tower and on the opposite side of the road. A garden, though not of the old dimensions, is still attached to the tavern and open to the public during the summer. [Nichols’s _Canonbury_, 1788, 33; _The Ambulator_, 1st ed. 1774, s.v. “Canonbury House”; Kearsley’s _Strangers’ Guide_ (1793?), s.v. “Canonbury or Cambray House”; _A Modern Sabbath_, 1797, chap. vii.; Nelson’s _Islington_, 252; Brayley’s _Londiniana_, iii. 269, ff.; _Picture of London_, eds. 1802 and 1829; Lewis’s _Islington_, p. 310; Timbs’s _Club Life_, 1866, ii. 228.] VIEWS.