Gayhurst House

The house was built in the early sixteenth-century on the site of a Roman villa and Norman manor.[1] It was expanded in 1597 by William Moulsoe.[lower-alpha 1] The house was completed by his son-in-law, Sir Everard Digby, one of the conspirators involved in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of the Digby family's disgrace and Everard's execution, his widow, Mary was able to retain the property. Both of their sons, John and Kenelm, were strong Royalists in the English Civil War, during which parliamentary troops were billeted at Gayhurst and an inscription in the porch showing an 'X' and the date 1649 is said to record the execution of Charles I. The estate was subsequently inherited by Sir Kenelm Digby, the courtier, diplomat and natural philosopher, whose initials are inscribed on stone pillars in the gardens. In 1704 the estate was sold to Sir Nathan Wrighte.[5]

The house was extensively refurbished, 1858–72, by William Burges for Robert Carrington, 2nd Baron Carrington, and his son. Lord Carrington was Burges' first significant patron.[lower-alpha 2] In total, some £30,000 was spent which did not include the costs of construction for Burges' planned main staircase that was never built.[7] However, a minor stair, the Caliban Stair, was constructed.[5]

During the Second World War a Bombe outstation to the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park was based at Gayhurst House. This was one of five Bombe outstations; Wavendon, Adstock Manor, Gayhurst, Eastcote and Stanmore which operated Bombe machines used in the breaking of the Enigma Code. By the end of the war the outstations operated over 200 Bombes operated on an inter-service basis with the installation and maintenance completed mainly by RAF and civilian personnel, and operated by WRNS.'OSG' (Outstation Gayhurst) was opened in September 1942 and operated 5 Bombes.[8]

The estate was broken up in the twentieth century and the house was converted into 14 flats between 1971 and 1979.[5]

William Moulsoe's house of 1597 was built to a traditional Elizabethan E-plan with projecting wings and a central porch with Doric columns on the south, entrance, front. The matching wings on the north front were infilled during the ownership of the younger George Wrighte, using a Palladian style.[5] The house is of three storeys and seven bays and is built of coursed limestone.[9]

Burges planned a full scheme of reconstruction for the 2nd Lord Carrington, including a new tower and a long gallery. Not all of this was carried out, but much of his plans for internal redecoration were undertaken.[7] The style chosen was Anglo/French Renaissance, which Burges considered in keeping with the date of Moulsoe's rebuilding.[5] Rooms contain some of his most splendid fireplaces, with carving by Burges' long-time collaborator Thomas Nicholls, in particular those in the Drawing Room which include motifs from Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.[5] Burges's contributions to the house were not always appreciated, an undated and anonymous guidebook, probably dating from the 1970s, described his work thus; "Burges made considerable alterations and additions, mostly of a disastrous nature." This view is not general; Burges's biographer, J. Mordaunt Crook, notes the inventiveness he displayed in the Abbess's Room, and considers the Cerberus Privy "one of Burges's happiest inventions."[lower-alpha 3][10]

The estate has a fine series of out-buildings including a seventeenth-century dovecote, turreted stables, a brewhouse, bakehouse and dog kennels. Perhaps the most extraordinary addition is the Male Servants' Lavatory, known as the Cerberus Privy, a large circular privy based on the Abbot's kitchen at Glastonbury and surmounted by a, now-eyeless, statue of Cerberus.[5]

The park was laid out by Capability Brown and remodelled by Humphry Repton.[5] Burges undertook the design of a series of formal gardens in an appropriate Jacobethan style but much of these has been lost during the redevelopment of the house in the late 20th-century.[6] The ten carved stone pedestals Burges designed remain in situ.[11]

• 
  The Church of St Peter and Gayhurst House
• 
  The Cerberus Privy
• 
  A distant view
• 
  A view from the maze
• 
  The Wrighte Monument in St Peter’s

• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Williamson, Elizabeth (2003). Buckinghamshire. The Buildings of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09584-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Crook, J. Mordaunt (2013). William Burges and the High Victorian Dream. London: Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-711-23349-2. OCLC 995483842.

• Article on Gayhurst Village by Janet Jack reproduced by the Milton Keynes Historical Association
• Gayhurst Village website produced by the Stoke Goldington Association