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John WOOD, the Younger
1728-1801

41 Gay Street

The achievement of the younger John Wood is considered by some authorities to surpass even that of his father. After completing the Circus following the elder Wood's death, he built the incomparable Royal Crescent between 1767 and 1775, linking it to the Circus with Brock Street, which he named after his brother-in-law: and almost simultaneously, his designs for the new Assembly Rooms saw fruition. Alfred Street and Bennett Street were also his creations.
  He was trained assiduously by his father, and when the elder Wood went to Liverpool to build a new town hall, his son accompanied him. It was there he met his future wife, who was the sister of Chester's town clerk, Thomas Brock. The couple were married in 1752, and settled in Bath at 41 Gay Street, an attractive house that had been designed by the elder Wood, with an elaborate corner bow facing Queen Square. Here they brought up a family of seven girls and two boys.
  Towards the end of his life he was deeply concerned over the poor housing conditions of labourers and artisans. The overcrowding, and the damp, unhealthy nature of most of the ramshackle, unsanitary cottages in which they lived, appalled him: and in 1780 he published A Series of Plans for Cottages and Habitations of the Labourer, either in Husbandry or the Mechanic's Arts, in which he undoubtedly staked a claim to be the first social reformer in architecture. He died in 1801, and was buried beside his father in the chancel of Swainswick Church.

 

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