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Gayhurst House (now known as Gayhurst Court) is a late-Elizabethan country house in Buckinghamshire. It is located near the village of Gayhurst, several kilometres north of Milton Keynes. The earliest house dates from the 1520s. In 1597 it was greatly expanded by William Moulsoe. His son-in-law, Everard Digby, completed the rebuilding, prior to his execution in 1606 for participating in the Gunpowder Plot. The house was subsequently owned by the Wrightes, and latterly the Carringtons. Robert Carrington engaged William Burges who undertook much remodelling of both the house and the estate, although his plans for Gayhurst were more extensive still. In the 20th century, the Carringtons sold the house, although retaining much of the surrounding estate. It is now divided into flats, with further housing in the surrounding estate buildings.
The house and the adjacent Church of St Peter are Grade I listed buildings and many of the buildings in the grounds have separate listings. Gayhurst House is not open to the public, although it can be seen from the footpath leading to the church.
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. In total, some £30,000 was spent which did not include the costs of construction for Burges' planned main staircase that was never built. However, a minor stair, the Caliban Stair, was constructed.
During the Second World War a Bombe outstation to the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park was based at Gayhurst House. This was one of five Bombe outstations; Wavendon Manor, 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.
The estate was broken up in the twentieth century and the house was converted into 14 flats between 1971 and 1979.
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. The style chosen was Anglo/French Renaissance, which Burges considered in keeping with the date of Moulsoe's rebuilding. 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. 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."
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 outhouse based on the Abbot's kitchen at Glastonbury and surmounted by a, now-eyeless, statue of Cerberus.
The park was laid out by Capability Brown and remodelled by Humphry Repton. 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. The ten carved stone Burges designed remain in situ.
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