Little Horwood Manor, with west wing service buildings, gardener's cottage, and garden walls and gateways

Little Horwood Manor is a hunting box built in 1938-39 to designs by A S G Butler. Constructed of dark buff to brown brick with stone detailing and red tile roofs, it adopts a butterfly plan form. In the Buildings of England: Buckinghamshire, Pevsner and Williamson describe it as "one of the last mansions in England on such a Lutyenesque scale", characterising its style as "a kind of watered-down Lutyens in the manner, say, of Nuffield College, Oxford". The construction employs reinforced steel joists to support the ground floor and possibly other elements.

The main front presents a formal, essentially symmetrical and rather austere composition. A central three-storey tower-like block with pyramidal roof is flanked by short curving wings. Ground-floor corridors within these wings connect to similar tower-like blocks at their outer ends. Architectural detailing is deliberately restrained. The main entrance door in the central block has a stone surround with pylons rising from a cornice, partly flanking a double-height window that lights the main staircase. The eastern tower block features a blind ground-floor door with a relief-carved boar's head at its centre, a row of single-light windows at first-floor level, and double doors at second-floor level opening from the former billiard room onto a balcony.

Flanking walls extend from the end towers to two-storey pavilions, each now a separate residence: one formerly a garage, the other the gardener's cottage. Both pavilions are included in the listing. The garden elevation, where short wings splay outward from the reception hall, displays slightly more variety and ornament. Central double doors with a decorative stone surround—featuring a segmental open pediment and relief-carved horses' heads, with a hunting horn behind one ear—lead from the reception hall to the raised garden terrace. Oriel windows light the principal bedrooms in the east and west wings overlooking this terrace, their heads enlivened with relief-carved hounds and foxes. Mullion and transom windows in various sizes and arrangements light the interior throughout.

A short service range extends westward beyond the former garage pavilion, comprising mainly single-storey garages (the rear portion behind the western pavilion converted to a house in the 1980s) and a former lavatory block, also converted for domestic use. These service buildings are of lesser architectural interest but help illustrate the historic scale and function of the ensemble.

The subdivision of the house in 1984 created five main freehold properties. In the central tower block (Number 3), the galleried two-storey reception hall is now subdivided but retains a ground-floor stone fireplace, the imposing staircase which splits at first-floor level, and heavy ribbed oak roof. Original joinery survives almost wholly intact, including a settle in the outer hall.

The south-eastern wing (Number 4) is accessed through a door created from a lowered window, leading into the curving ground-floor corridor with heavy curving oak beam and wooden joinery including cupboards and radiator covers. The corridor continues to a large drawing room overlooking the gardens, with wood panelling, columns, and a large stone fireplace. A study and ante-room had been contrived from the end of the drawing room before 1981. First-floor rooms include a principal bedroom with corner fireplace flanked by pilasters and with alcove. This bedroom connects with a bathroom retaining its original bath, basin and lavatory with rich blue surrounds to bath and basin. Another bedroom has a nearly identically detailed bathroom with green surrounds. An inserted staircase leads to 1980s attic rooms.

The north-west wing including the end tower (Number 5) contains a library which led off the corridor from the centre of the house; its shelving has been retained following conversion of the room to a kitchen. Beyond, the tower had a ground-floor drawing room, first-floor bedroom, and second-floor bedroom.

The south-western and north-western ranges from the central tower (Number 2) are accessed to the south-west through an original secondary back door leading into a lobby with built-in settle. Off this is the former dining room overlooking the garden, panelled with carved animals' heads at intervals around the room, and featuring a heavy beamed ceiling, stone fireplace, and built-in cupboards. The former kitchen in the north-west wing retains the original pair of electric servants' bell indicators (annunciators) giving the original room names. This property, like Number 4, is entered from the front via a door made from a lowered window leading into the former curving ground-floor corridor with heavy curving oak beam and wooden joinery including radiator covers. An original curving staircase leads to the first floor and on to a second-floor room. The principal first-floor bedroom contains a great deal of decorative woodwork of an Arts and Crafts character including exposed studding and built-in cupboards; an oriel window overlooks the garden. It connects to a bathroom with green onyx-like detailing; another bathroom has black panels.

The remainder of the north-west wing (Number 1) represents a conversion of former store rooms with bedrooms above.

To the north of the house, the turning circle is bounded by angled forecourt walls with a central gateway featuring tall piers and ball finials which, with the house, define an octagonal space. Behind the house is a small terrace retained by a brick wall 2.5 metres high. Stairs descending from this to the garden have at their head a single tall brick pier with stone finial. These garden gateways and walls are included in the listing.

The house was commissioned in 1938 by George Gee, an industrialist and partner in Gee Walker Slater, a major engineering and building firm. The architect was A S G Butler. The site chosen was relatively high ground about a mile north of Little Horwood village, alongside the existing Manor Farm complex. It was supposedly intended as a hunting box, Gee being a keen supporter of the Whaddon Chase Hunt, and this tradition seems borne out by the building's evidence, including the hunting-themed relief carvings. Reportedly Gee was challenged in the hunting field by one of the Rothschilds to complete his new house in under a year, which was achieved.

When built, the house contained a double-height reception hall, library, three sitting or drawing rooms, dining room, and study. The first floor accommodated eleven bedrooms, eight with en-suite bathrooms, those on the garden side enjoying long views across the Vale of Aylesbury to the Chilterns. A further six bedrooms were provided on the second floor along with a large billiard room in the east-front tower. A games room occupied a third floor formed in the roof of the central tower.

The house was apparently never used by Gee. During the Second World War it was requisitioned by the government and reputedly served as an out-station to Bletchley Park. After the war the building was sold and remained mothballed until 1984 when it was subdivided into five main freehold properties. The stables were similarly subdivided and converted to four residential units and are separately listed. Despite subdivision, both the exterior and interior survive largely intact with internal detailing and craftsmanship of a high order. The associated service buildings and hard landscaping features including the forecourt walls and garden terrace remain little altered.