Gayhurst House Geograph-2831357-by-Philip-Jeffrey.jpg
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Gayhurst is a village and civil parish in the
unitary authority area A unitary authority is a local government, local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the ...
of the City of Milton Keynes,
Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
, England. It is about two and a half miles NNW of
Newport Pagnell Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area. It is separated from the rest of the urban ...
. The village name is an Old English language word meaning 'wooded hill where goats are kept'. In the Domesday Book in 1086 it was recorded as ''Gateherst''; later names include Goathurst. At that time the
manor Manor may refer to: Land ownership *Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England *Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism *Man ...
was owned by Bishop
Odo of Bayeux Odo of Bayeux (died 1097), Earl of Kent and Bishop of Bayeux, was the maternal half-brother of William the Conqueror, and was, for a time, second in power after the King of England. Early life Odo was the son of William the Conqueror's mother ...
.


History

In 1582, Queen Elizabeth I made a grant of Gayhurst Manor "in the event of its reversion to the Crown" to
Sir Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (t ...
, but there is no record that he ever received it. The house once belonged to Sir Everard Digby (1578–1606), one of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. His son Sir Kenelm Digby, (1603–1665) was an English courtier, diplomat, natural philosopher and astrologer. He was born at Gayhurst. Gayhurst had an outstation from the Bletchley Park codebreaking establishment, where one of the Bombes used to decode German Enigma messages in World War Two were housed.


Listed buildings and structures

The parish has two buildings listed at Grade I, five at Grade II* and 20 at grade II. The (Grade I listed) Church of St Peter was built in the classical style in 1728 to replace a medieval church; the designer is unknown.Betjeman, J. (ed.) (1968) ''Collins Pocket Guide to English Parish Churches: the South''. London: Collins; p. 127


References

Villages in Buckinghamshire Areas of Milton Keynes Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire {{Buckinghamshire-geo-stub