Prior Bolton's Fishpond

I have previously mentioned one of our local landmarks, Canonbury Tower (see above, partly obscured by the more recent building), which was built by William Bolton, the Prior of the Augustinian Priory of St Bartholomew's, Smithfield (1505-32). You can still see his device of a barrel (tun) pierced by a crossbow bolt on some nearby buildings. Bolton was also Master of the King's Works and was involved in many other building projects, such as Westminster Abbey's Henry VII Chapel and monument to Lady Margaret Beaufort.

Last night I visited a parishioner and passed a road called 'Prior Bolton Street'. I was then told that the remnants of a fishpond that once belonged to the good Canons occasionally 're-appears' and floods the basements of certain houses in the area. England is full of stories of ghosts who lament the destruction of the 1530s - phantom monks and nuns and all that - but it is curious to hear of a pond that serves to remind the people of twenty-first century Islington of pre-Reformation days!