The son of a Bath builder, John Wood trained as a joiner and worked on the Earl of Oxford's estate in London at Cavendish Square and Oxford Street before moving to Yorkshire to work for Lord Bingley at Bramham Park. When Wood returned to Bath in 1727 as a self-educated architect he embarked upon a series of developments that introduced Palladianism to Bath, defining what style the architecture of the city would be built in and dictating in which direction urban expansion would move.
Wood also introduced a new building type to the city; ranges of terrace houses designed to have the appearance of a single palatial facade in the manner of the Palladian Country House. Woods use of the fashionable Palladian style ensured that his developments would be the most grandiose and therefore the most popular with the elite members of society coming to Bath during the eighteenth century. The greatest example of this is the North range of Queen Square built 1734-6 and noted by Nikolas Pevsner as 'one of England's grandest Palladian compositions'.
The significance of Wood's role in the development of Bath is matched by the influence his architectural designs were to have upon the development of both British architecture and European town planning. The extent of his creative genius is seen in the sequence of built spaces that progress from Queen Square (1727-1734) to The Circus (1754-67) where he was joined in his work by his son John Wood the Younger (1728-81).
The sequence culminates at the Royal Crescent (1764-75) designed by Wood the Younger to his father's original concept. In 1987, the City of Bath was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site and two of the six Outstanding Universal Values that determine this globally recognised heritage status are defined by the work of John Wood and his Son.