John Wood set up Community House at 213 North Gower Street with his wife Vera in 1974. In an affidavit presented in the High Court a year later, John stated:

‘I moved into 213 North Gower Street in May 1974 … at which time the house was totally uninhabitable and full of rubbish and excrement…. On our arrival we discovered that all the lavatories, soil pipes, cisterns and hand basins had been systematically torn from their moorings and smashed. The floorboards in the back rooms all the way up the house had been torn up and thrown in the yard outside. The slates had been removed from the back slope of the roof so that the rain poured right through the house from the roof to the cellar where it had collected in a stinking quagmire. Ferns and huge fungi fed by the downpour sprouted from the walls. The ceilings on the stairs and in many of the rooms had collapsed forming damp mounds of plaster and rubble. Broken glass and splintered woodwork were strewn everywhere together with thousands of empty bottles of assorted spirits left by derelicts and alcoholics who at some time or another had sheltered in the house.’

‘It took me three to four months to complete the cleaning and repair of the house. Floorboards were replaced, ceilings repaired, plumbing installed and all the rooms, stairs and corridors repainted?. The wiring in the house was replaced and connected to the mains by the London Electricity Board after examination of our wiring.’

‘The exterior facade … was in an appalling state upon our arrival. This was a result of neglect and the running damp arising from the state of the roof. In view of the fact that this house is one of a terrace of five Georgian houses, it was particularly sad that the front of the house should have decayed and been allowed to fall into such a state. After two months of our occupation I undertook the restoration and the repainting of the facade of the house …. This house has recently been listed by the Department of the Environment as of architectural and historic interest.’ (John Wood, affidavit, 1975)

Mick Plewman knew John and Vera before their move to Tolmers Village and writes:

‘In September 1969, I was a student at Bucknall and Woods Science Tutors in Winchester where John was the principal. The large Victorian house was situated on a tree-lined avenue just outside the centre of Winchester. The school was well run, with John, clean shaven in a tailored double-breasted suit, seeing parents and doing some maths teaching. Vera was more in the background, answering the phones and generally providing the “glue” that held it all together. They kindly let me stay with them during the second half of my year in Winchester. During the week, it was all business with students and teachers arriving and lessons taking place in the well-appointed science lab that John had built himself. During the weekends, a very different bohemian crowd came down to stay.’

‘John and Vera had previously worked at the experimental school Summerhill under A.S. Neill. I think John had become bored with the more conventional job of running a science tutors and by the end of the academic year, the school closed. I moved with John and Vera to London and then travelled with them to India. This was the first of a number of visits to India for John and Vera, although John had spent some time in Sri Lanka a long while back when it was Ceylon.’

‘John was very interested in the teachings of Gandhi, particularly ahimsa or the practice of non-violence and the self-sufficiency practices Gandhi espoused, such as spinning your own thread or khadi. We went to Sevagram ashram in Maharashtra State, which was really a Ghandhi museum at that point, and then walked in the blazing sun to Paunar, where Gandhi’s disciple Vinoba Bhave had an ashram. I know John was impressed with Vinoba Bhave’s Bhoodan Movement involving landowners giving land to the poor. Vinoba Bhave saw us twice and seemed amused by us, making a point of looking up the word hippy, which was how we described ourselves.’

‘This was 1971 and many local people had not seen Europeans. Vinoba had chosen an area that was very poor and the attitudes particularly towards women were traditional in the extreme. I remember a disturbing incident staying in the temple just across the river from the ashram in Paunar with John, Vera and a young man who was acting as our translator. In the night we were woken by terrible screaming and saw a completely naked woman outside the temple. Any approach to help and her screams grew louder as she retreated into the darkness. We learned that she had been raped multiple times then expelled from her village. I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the awfulness of her story.  Much to the disapproval of the temple guardians, John slowly approached her, speaking softly and always looking away from her. He placed a rug on the ground for her to cover herself and later we left her some food. By the morning, she had gone.’

‘I later lost contact with them in Delhi and returned to the UK to study. Three years had passed before I saw them again and John and Vera were in North Gower Street running Community House.’ (Mick Plewman, 2025)

Community House came to end in 1976/1977. John died in 1990.

See the Community House collection

See all 213 North Gower Street photos

See Vera Wood’s where are they now profile

See Come together story by Paul Nicholson