Gayhurst Court, Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire, MK16

SPECIAL APARTMENT IN ONE OF ENGLAND’S FINEST COUNTRY HOUSES -WITH PARKLAND, LAKES AND COURTS

An outstanding 3-bedroom apartment of over 2,000 sq. ft. within Gayhurst House, the magnificent, Grade I-listed, Elizabethan country mansion in Buckinghamshire. The apartment is accessed exclusively by an architecturally significant staircase and enjoys the most amazing views over wonderful parkland and lakes created by two of the country’s most celebrated landscape designers. The communal grounds include tennis courts and ample parking, and you have your own double garage. Coming home through the parkland and the Great Hall of the house itself, it’s impossible to imagine a more special, peaceful and inspiring place to live or spend the weekend.

Built on the site of a Roman villa, Gayhurst House was given by Elizabeth I to Sir Francis Drake as a reward for his Armada triumph, was later home of the Digby family of Gunpowder Plot infamy and has variously been a satellite of the Bletchley Park codebreakers and a school, before becoming exclusive apartments.

Within a short drive of Milton Keynes shopping centre and railway station, from where fast trains reach London in 32 minutes, your new home is also just a cycle ride or footpath walk away from all the facilities and amenities of the market town of Newport Pagnell.

And you have the year-round enjoyment of over 5 acres of the most wonderful parkland, pond and gardens, the grounds originally having been laid out by the great English landscape designers, Capability Brown and Humphry Repton. Within the gardens are ten carved, stone pedestals by William Burges, the architect employed by Lord Carrington to remodel the house in the mid-19th century. Spot Cerberus looking down from one of the roofs.

Few are fortunate enough to have a beautiful church at the end of their lawn. This “Georgian gem” has a marble monument inside described by Pevsner as “one of the finest in England”. Seek out the Digby Walk, which leads through an arch beneath the distant road to the beautiful River Great Ouse. Take out membership and fish in the lakes; play tennis on the courts; and with agreement host a family function within the grounds – all with the perfect backdrop of one of the finest houses in the Country.

The 18th century poet, William Cowper, who lived in the nearby market town of Olney, felt privileged to be allowed to walk with friends in “the prettiest place in the country”. What a place to invite your friends to. What a place to have as a weekend retreat. What a place to call your home.

MORE ABOUT THE PROPERTY 

Coming home to the Gayhurst estate, the cares of the day melt away as you pootle past the lakes, little lambs gambolling in the pastures under their mothers’ patient gaze, meadows dazzling yellow in the sunshine. And year-round, the heart leaps at the sight of St Peter’s, which bears the hallmarks of the office of Sir Christopher Wren, with the beautiful house in the background in which your apartment takes pride of place.

It’s one thing to let yourself, or your visitors, into the Great Hall and up the early-18th century grand staircase to the galleried landing. It’s quite another, from there, to have a stone masterpiece exclusively serving your new home. Designed by the great Victorian architect, William Burges, with supporting corbels representing Shakespeare’s Caliban and Ariel, and a magnificent, coffered, oak ceiling just outside your apartment door, it rather suggests that your rooms were of some significance to Lord Carrington.

They’re certainly impressive today. And utterly beautiful, with their tall, intricately corniced ceilings, domed in the dining room, their dado and full-height panelling, their stone fireplaces and gorgeous, leaded, stone-mullioned windows.

And beautifully, and expensively, finished, too, with paints from Farrow & Ball, Little Greene and the Paint & Paper Library. Luxury wall coverings are from such designers as Pierre Frey, Colefax & Fowler and Manuel Canovas. From stylish Sisal underfoot to chic chandeliers high above your head (you’d need to have a conversation if these are to stay), and everything between, including lovely light switches and door furniture for the kitchen, the result is sometimes bold, always beautiful and in keeping.

Wallow in a sumptuous, handmade bath that is super deep and keeps the water hotter for longer. Wake up in beautiful bedrooms to wonderful views over the waters, woods and parkland, to the parterre - due to be reinstated - and to the striking dome of the Georgian church. Breakfast in the bay of the spectacular sitting room, relaxing with coffee on the window seat, watching red kites soaring high above the sheep and cows grazing below. Entertain in the grand dining room. Even the little study nook is brimming with character, with its lovely, exposed stone and mullioned window overlooking the three-storey, pillared main porch. One thing’s for sure: living here is like nowhere else.

SHARE OF FREEHOLD INFO

Freehold owned by resident-run management company / Leasehold: 999 years from 1976. Service charge: currently £405 pm – house and estate. No ground rent.