The Circus


John Wood I
begun 1754



Because John Wood I was interested in Roman architecture and because he knew that Bath had been an earlier Roman city, he designed a number of Roman-style monuments for Bath. The Circus, first conceived as an area for sports, became a circle of town houses with three streets entering the circle, one of which leads to the Royal Crescent.




The classical facade

Like the elevation of the Colosseum, the Circus facade uses different classical orders for each register: Doric at the bottom with triglyphs and metopes, then Ionic, and at the top the Corinthian order.

The bottom, middle and top registers




Click here to see the Bath Royal Crescent.


Click here to see an earlier example of town planning, the Place des Vosges in Paris.


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