Residents said they woke up on Sunday to the massive painting on the side of a block of flats in Hornsey Road near Finsbury Park.

Pest Control, the official body that authenticates Banksy work, confirmed to Sky News the painting was indeed Banksy's latest offering.

The elusive artist - who shares his work on his Instagram page - also posted a picture of the site on his official page on Monday, showing the wall before and after the work was completed.

The large-scale painting is a green splatter-effect shape, painted behind a cut-back tree - giving the appearance of adding a halo of leaves and foliage to the bare branches.

The green paint drips down to the floor, where a figure of a young girl painted with a stencil in green and black is looking up at the work.

She appears to be holding a pressure sprayer.

The shade of bright green paint used in the piece matches the colour of Islington Council branding, and also seems likely to be a nod to St Patrick's Day, which was on Sunday 17 March.

Local resident Amy, who lives in the building said she could never have predicted Bansky would have chosen her flat wall to paint on.

She told Sky News: "We've lived here for three years, so we've seen the tree as it was when it was full of leaves and now it's been chopped down."

She described it as "a big willow tree" with "layers of leaves kind of over spilling". She went on: "I suppose that's what he's tried to capture with the green. And then I think about a year or two ago, they chopped it down because it was getting too big".

She described the unexpected painting as "really exciting" adding, "I'm really happy for the community that something so cool happened here".

MP for Islington North, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also visited the site, sharing pictures on X and writing: "Banksy has come to Islington! What wonderful artwork, proving there is hope for our natural world everywhere."

Islington councillor Flora Williamson shared images of the art on X, and said she was a fan of Banksy's work.

She wrote: "By far the most exciting thing to happen on today's canvass session on Hornsey Road was seeing that Banksy had come to Tollington overnight. Lots of local interest - I'm a fan of it."

Lidia Guerra, another Hornsey Road resident, said: "The way it's been done with the paint spraying down reminds me of a weeping willow, so there's perhaps a message about the struggle of nature with the dead tree in front.

"It's just great - when we read about it last night, we knew we had to come and see it as soon as possible.

"We feel so proud to think he chose our street."

Ahead of his latest creation, Banksy's last confirmed work was a stop sign in Peckham, south London, with three military drones stuck across it, and was shared just before Christmas.

However, that work was removed less than an hour after it was confirmed to be genuine on the artist's social media, with witnesses reporting it was taken down by a man with bolt cutters.

Two men were later arrested on suspicion of theft and criminal damage.