page_title: John Wood, the Elder
section_title: Stonehenge and Stanton Drew surveys
hierarchical_section_title: John Wood, the Elder / Stonehenge and Stanton Drew surveys
caption_attribution_description: English: Part of a plan of Stonehenge drawn by John Wood in 1740
context_page_description: John Wood, the Elder, was an English architect, working mainly in Bath.
  In 1740 he surveyed Stonehenge and the Stanton Drew stone circles. He later wrote extensively about Bladud and Neo-Druidism. Because of some of his designs he is also thought to have been involved in the early years of Freemasonry.
  His notable work in Bath included: St John's Hospital, Queen Square, Prior Park, The Royal Mineral Water Hospital, the North and South Parades and The Circus. Wood also designed important buildings outside Bath, including the reconstruction of Llandaff Cathedral, Buckland House, The Exchange, Bristol, and Liverpool Town Hall. He has been described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "one of the outstanding architects of the day".
context_section_description: Wood also left us the most important plan of Stonehenge ever made; his survey, carried out in 1740 and published in his Choir Gaure, Vulgarly Called Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain (1747), was annotated with hundreds of measurements, which he resolved on the ground to one half, sometimes even one quarter, of an inch. This work has been largely overlooked, partly due to criticisms made by the antiquarian William Stukeley. Wood's interpretation of the monument as a place of pagan ritual was vehemently attacked by Stukeley who saw the druids not as pagans, but as biblical patriarchs. Stukely also failed to see the significance of recording the stones in such detail. However, using Wood's original dimensions it has been possible to re-draw his work on a computer and compare the record with the modern plan of Stonehenge. His survey has immense archaeological value, for he recorded the stones fifty years before the collapse of the western trilithon (which fell in 1797 and was not restored until 1958).
  In the same year Wood surveyed and mapped the Stanton Drew stone circles, noting the different stones used and suggesting the layout was based on the Pythagorean planetary system.
caption: Part of Wood's plan of Stonehenge
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