Editing Highbury (section)

== Highbury Manor ==
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Highbury was once owned by Ranulf, brother of Ilger, and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads.

The manor house was by what is now the east side of Hornsey Road, near the junction with Seven Sisters Road. After the manor decayed, a new manor house was built in 1271 to the south-east; to differentiate it from the original manor and because it was on a hill, it was called Highbury, from which the area takes its name.

The site for Highbury Manor was possibly used by a Roman garrison as a summer camp. During the construction of a new Highbury House in 1781, tiles were found that could have been Roman or Norman.

Ownership of Highbury eventually passed to Alicia de Barrow, who in 1271 gave it to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, also known as the [[Knights Hospitaller|Knights Hospitallers in England]]. The wealthy Lord Prior built Highbury manor as a substantial stone country lodging with a grange and barn.

In 1381, during the [[Peasants' Revolt]], [[Jack Straw (rebel leader)|Jack Straw]] led a mob of 20,000 rioters who "so offended by the wealth and haughtiness" of the Knights Hospitallers destroyed the manor house. The [[List of the priors of St John of Jerusalem in England|Lord Prior]] at the time, [[Robert Hales (knight)|Robert Hales]], who had taken refuge in the [[Tower of London]], was captured and beheaded on [[Tower Hill, London|Tower Hill]]. Jack Straw and some of his followers used the site as a temporary headquarters; consequently the derelict manor became known for the next 500 years as Jack Straw's Castle. This should not be confused with the better known Jack Straw's Castle, formerly a [[public house|pub]] and now residential [[apartment building|flats]] at Whitestone Ponds, [[Hampstead]], which was named after the semi-legendary leader of the revolt.