More information about Canonbury
The Canonbury Ward covers the area roughly bounded by St Paul’s Road, Ball’s Pond Road, Canonbury Road/New North Road and Southgate Road.
Historically, Canonbury is the smaller area to the North of Essex Road round the Elizabethan Manor of Canonbury named after a religious foundation of Canons (part of St Bartholomew’s Priory, Smithfield) and centered round the Canonbury Tower and adjacent buildings in Canonbury Place. The area is crossed by the New River constructed in the 17th Century as part of the water supply for the growing city and now laid out as an attractive park which is a valuable amenity for the area.
Most of Canonbury was developed in the nineteenth century and consists predominantly of Victorian terraces and semi-detached houses, but in the 1930s and the post-war period some areas were replaced by council flats, including the New River Green Estate (previously the Marquess Estate).
Socially, Canonbury is a very diverse area with some of the richest and poorest inhabitants of Islington and a number of ethnic minority communities.