Portrait of John Wood, half-length, in a blue coat; and Portrait of Mrs John Wood, half-length, in a pink dress

John Wood (1682-1756), whose grandfather John Wood was Lord Mayor of York in 1682, qualified as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn and served as treasurer of the Inn in 1748. He married Frances (1681-1740), daughter and heiress of John Nicholson, of York, in 1706. It was through this marriage that he was able to acquire Hollin Hall, North Yorkshire, in 1719 for £1,600 and later to rebuild it using the great classical house Newby Hall, which lay across the river Ure, only two miles to the east, as a model.