GOTHURST, or as it is now called, GAYHURST, in the hundred and deanery of Newport, lies about three miles from Newport-Pagnell, near the road to Northampton. The manor, at the time of the Norman Survey, was held under the bishop of Baieux, by Robert de Noadariis, or Nowers, whose family not long afterwards became possessed of it in their own right. On the death of the last heir male in 1408, it passed by marriage to Sir Richard Neville, and from the Nevilles, by another female heir, to the family of Mulso, about the middle of the sixteenth century. The only daughter of William Mulso, who died in 1601, married Sir Everard Digby, who forfeited his life for being concerned in that diabolical conspiracy, the gunpowder plot. He guarded in some measure against the consequences of failure and detection, by making over his estates in trust for his infant son, by which means he secured them from confiscation: this son, the celebrated Sir Kenelm Digby, was born at Gothurst in 1603. John Digby, only surviving son of Sir Kenelm, left two daughters, married to John Conway and Richard Mostyn esq. who having procured an act of parliament for that purpose, sold Gothurst, in 1704, to the son of Lord Keeper Wrighte. It is now the property and seat of Miss Wrighte, only daughter and heir of the late George Wrighte esq. The manor-house was built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and has undergone little alteration as to its external appearance; the great part of the inside has been modernized. Some portraits of the Digby family still remain here; among which is that of Sir Everard, and one inscribed John Digby, which Mr. Pennant conjectures nevertheless to have been meant for Sir Kenelm in his younger days, but there seems no good reason for supposing why it should not have been his son John Digby. In the hall are two bronze busts of Venetia Lady Digby, wife of Sir Kenelm, much admired for their workmanship. There is a beautiful miniature of this lady, by Peter Oliver, at Strawberry-Hill, another of Sir Kenelm and his lady, in one piece, after Vandyke, and singularly fine one of Lady Lucy, her mother, by Isaac Oliver; which were purchased by the late Earl of Orford, of Mr. Watkin Williams, and had been found in the garret of an old house in Wales. At Gothurst are also several portraits of the present proprietors family, among which are Lord Keeper Wrighte and Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls. The parish church, in which was an ancient French inscription for one of the family of Nowers, was pulled down in 1725: the present building was completed in 1728, with a sum of money bequeathed for that purpose by Mr. Wrighte, who purchased the manor. In the church are whole length figures in white marble, of the Lord Keeper, in his robes, and his son, George Wrighte esq. clerk of the crown, in his official dress. An act of Parliament passed in the year 1712, for ascertaining the glebe, tithes, and profits of the rectory: in 1736 it was consolidated with Stoke-Goldington; Miss Wrighte is patroness.
