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FREEMASONRY TODAY
Book Review
Whether or not John Wood was a
Freemason is not clear. It
seems from Kirsten Elliott’s
excellent book that he was one in all but
name, and as such he is of great interest to
us. Part sage, part mystic, part architect
and writer, part charlatan and part
inspired researcher, draughtsman and
planner, he infuses the first half of the
18thC with his insight and mysticism.
His research of Stonehenge is quite
remarkable, and his reconstruction of it,
compared with modern surveys, is
brilliantly accurate, although he spoils it
by flights of fancy about its history. He
had a fixation with the legendary figure of
Bladud, whom he attempts to prove was
king of Britain around 500 BC, and to
credit him with being Abaris the
Hyperborean, priest of Apollo, endowed
with the gift of prophecy.
Elliott tells us that ‘People are usually
either dreamers or doers. What [John
Wood’s] books reveal to us is that he was
both.’ It is fortunate that he was; without
that facet of his character, the city of Bath
as we know it would not have existed.
Elliott makes a convincing case for
overturning the received view that
Wood was a Yorkshireman, and
gives us evidence that he was a
Bathonian. In his bold and
visionary plans for Bath he is
opposed by ‘... the corrupt, the
opportunistic, the envious and the
penny-pinching’.
The Circus in Bath (the King’s
Circus), not completed until after
Wood’s death, is yet the crowning
glory of his work in Bath. It shows
the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian
orders of architecture. And it shows
some of the most compelling
evidence for Wood having been a
Freemason, with its liberal use of
the Ouroboros theme, representative
of the philosopher’s stone and of
Hermes.
All in all an enchanting book,
well-written, and only slightly
marred by the poor quality of the
illustrations.
Julian Rees
Issue 32, Spring 2005
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