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.

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.

[5] During the Second World War a Bombe outstation to the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park was based at Gayhurst House.

[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.

"[c][10] The estate has a fine series of out-buildings including a seventeenth-century dovecote, turreted stables, a brewhouse, bakehouse and dog kennels.

[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.

The interior contains a memorial monument to George Wrighte and his son, Sir Nathan, the purchaser of the house in the early 18th-century, which Pevsner calls "one of the grandest of its type in England".

[9][13] Burges' Cerberus privy, and the service range he redeveloped, now converted to houses, are listed at Grade II*.

[17] The lodge at the entrance to the drive, formerly the Sir Francis Drake public house and now derelict, is also listed at Grade II.