Canonbury Tower

Canonbury Tower

A house, now offices, serving as the premises of the Canonbury Tower Trust and the Tavistock Repertory Company. The building originated as part of a manor belonging to the Prior and Canons of St Bartholomew's, West Smithfield, which was rebuilt in the early 16th century and again in the late 16th century by Sir John Spencer. The staircase tower dates to around 1580 with its top storey added later in the same century. A three-storey wing east of the tower was added in the early 17th century, and a three-storey wing south of the tower dates to around 1580. Various further additions were made in the 17th and 18th centuries, followed by extensive restoration in 1907–8 under the care of Major Dance, with Thurman and White as the builders.

The building is constructed in brick, with the staircase tower laid in English bond and the other wings covered with plaster. The roofs are tiled. The staircase tower has one exposed front to the north with wings to the other sides: three storeys to the west, four storeys to the south, and three storeys to the east. The tower has four stages with buttresses on the north front rising to the third stage with two offsets. A three-light window lights the ground floor, while stepped windows to the staircase are casements in thick frames set flush with the wall, presumably restored in 1907. Brick string courses divide the stages, and a corbelled string runs above the fourth stage below the heightened parapet. Windows to the wings are generally small-paned sashes set flush or slightly proud of the wall.

The gabled wing to the west is brick to ground-floor level and plastered above. Its north wall has two ground-floor windows, a canted wooden bay to the first floor, and two windows to the upper floors. On the west front, the ground floor projects in a curve (of late 18th-century or later date) with two 1907 windows and a parapet. A five-sided bay with flat roof projects at the south-west corner of this wing, containing two windows to the first and second floors. One window lights the gable of the west wing, and a chimneystack rises from it by the south-west corner of the tower. The cross-gabled south wing has first- and second-floor windows facing west with a central mullion and one window in the gable; first- and second-floor windows facing south, set to the left, and one window in the gable; its east face features steps up to a ground-floor flat-arched entrance with moulded doorcase and overlight, first- and second-floor windows with a central mullion, and one window in the gable. The east wing contains a flat-arched entrance in Canonbury Place with a late 18th- or early 19th-century moulded doorcase and a ground-floor tripartite window under a cambered arch; the first floor has a wooden canted bay with a brick band above and a window to the second floor. An external stack to the east has offsets and a parapeted gable. A single-storey wing linking Canonbury Tower to King Edward's Hall abuts the east front, with a garden door under a cambered arch, a ground-floor casement window, and sashes to the first and second floors on the south front.

Interior

The staircase consists of a timber-framed core, square in plan, with a handrail and cupboards with moulded timber architraves formed in the void. At the fourth floor, the tower becomes open in plan with a balustrade and side staircase, the balustrade formed in 1907 from earlier timbers.

The Spencer Room on the first floor of the south wing is panelled from floor to ceiling in oak. The east and west sides comprise two bays each with a broad window bay, while the south side has an arrangement of bays corresponding to the north, including the entrance and fireplace. The bays are divided by Ionic pilasters with cabled fluting, and a frieze of meandering foliage, with a moulded cornice above. The fireplace has a flat-arched opening with a frieze of palmettes and a further frieze of guilloche ornament over it, with two bays above that divided by pilasters with faceted ornament, framing panels within panels under shell-moulds. Neo-Classical cast-iron grates are present in rooms on the first floor to the east and north-west.

The Compton Room on the second floor of the south wing contains panelling that appears to have been reset to create an extra room from the eastern bay. The panelling extends from floor to ceiling, with pilasters generally on plinths decorated with grotesque ornaments, the body of the columns adorned with strapwork and Corinthian capitals—many mutilated—and a frieze of palmette forms with some heraldic shields. A fireplace in the north wall has a flat-arched opening and a 20th-century simple stone surround, flanked by pilasters without plinths; above it are bands of strapwork and fluting, a mantelshelf decorated with trailing roses, and an overmantel consisting of two panels with strapwork frames enclosing figures of Faith and Hope. A Neo-Classical cast-iron grate is present in the second-floor room in the north-west wing.

The Inscription Room on the fifth floor bears a painted inscription relating to kings and queens of England until Charles I. The door is of plank construction with wrought-iron hinges on the inner side and of frame-and-panel construction with moulded frames on the outer side, the outer side having been re-used.