CANONS, a property in Little Stanmore parish, Middlesex; 1¼ mile NW of Edgeware. It belonged to the priory of St. Bartholomew; went, at the dissolution, to the Losses; and passed to the Lakes, and to the first Duke of Chandos, the "Timon" of Pope. A palace was built on it by the Duke of Chandos; and pulled down in 1747. Canons Park here was the residence of the sportsman, O'Kelly; and figured in connexion with his famous horse "Eclipse."

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))