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Wentworth Woodhouse is a large country house in South Yorkshire, England.

In 2016, Mansions Global describe it as:

the largest private house in the UK

In 2014, Yorkshire Life described it as

the largest privately-owned house in Europe

Visiting Wentworth Woodhouse: The Grand Home of the Earls Fitzwilliam in Yorkshire, dated October 17, 2021 says:

Wentworth Woodhouse is one of the finest Georgian buildings in the United Kingdom and it has the longest façade of any country home in Europe;..

and

Wentworth Woodhouse was the largest private home in England until it was sold in 2017 to the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust who have been breathing new life into the old house and giving it a new future.

Some of the other very large houses and former houses in the UK include:

And there might be other candidates I haven't listed.

Is/was Wentworth Woodhouse the largest current or former private single family house in the UK?

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  • Your Wikipedia link says it is *two* houses: "Wentworth Woodhouse comprises two joined houses, forming west and east fronts." – Weather Vane Nov 08 '21 at 08:42
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    This might get into semantic arguments over what defines a "private house" or "private home". As well as how "largest" should be measured. – Nate Eldredge Nov 09 '21 at 14:33
  • @NateEldredge: Yes, in which case we should use the definitions we think the claimants used. (Perhaps explaining that they might be correct using their definitions, but not the definitions the reader might expect, if that is indeed the case here.) – Oddthinking Nov 09 '21 at 19:18
  • Does 'private house' or 'privately-owned house' even imply that it is something like a single residential building? Otherwise factories, apartment blocks or other similar things would qualify as long as they are owned by an individual. I would interpret the wording so that this would fall within the definition but the sources seem to restrict to one-household residences. – quarague Nov 10 '21 at 07:02
  • I happened to find a similar question on another site: https://www.quora.com/Was-Wentworth-Woodhouse-Yorkshire-the-largest-private-house-in-the-UK/answer/Mark-Golding-10?prompt_topic_bio=1 in case it is answered there. – M. A. Golding Nov 11 '21 at 04:18
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    @quarague Personally, I wouldn't use "house" for any of those things, unless they had _previously_ been a single residence, and even then I would probably expect it to be qualified as "former house" etc; so _that_ part of the definition seems pretty clear to me. I'm less sure on the "private" / "privately-owned" part, though. – IMSoP Nov 12 '21 at 17:02
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    @Weather Vane The two parts of Wentworth Woodhouse were built at different times but are connected and have doorways between them. That makes them a single building which was used for a single purpose. I lived in an old stone farmhouse which had a wooden 2 story addition and a little attached greenhouse added to it at various times. It was one house, and Wentworth Woodhouse was also one house on a vastly larger scale. – M. A. Golding Nov 14 '21 at 19:28
  • @IMAoP Each of the buldings listed was built as private mansion and was a private single family residence for decades or centuries before being convered to other uses or demolished. – M. A. Golding Nov 14 '21 at 19:31
  • @M.A.Golding I was responding to the claim that "factories, apartment blocks or other similar things would qualify as long as they are owned by an individual". No factory would qualify as a private house _while in use as a factory_, because the category "house" does not include factories. That same building might _previously_ have been a private house, but that's an entirely different question. Logically, though, if they had already been converted by 2014, they would not be relevant (since the claim is not "largest which has ever existed"). – IMSoP Nov 14 '21 at 19:46
  • Definition of private house will necessarily be a bit fuzzy, because these buildings were often built to house a family plus their servants, but would also have space for several guests. More recently, occupants without huge numbers of servants and lavish lifestyles will probably only live in a small part of the property, while the rest may be used for tourism or other purposes. Hence, you're really left with questions like: for what purpose was it built? how has it been classified historically and presently? how does it compare with other properties? – Stuart F Nov 15 '21 at 17:15
  • This is basically a palace - much of the floorspace is given to ceremonial rooms, the occupants would (apart from the family) also include a small army of servants. Therefore i'd say that any other palace is also fair game? e.g. Versailles with 60.000m²+ of floorspace against wentworth with23.000m² ... Buckingham: 77.000m² – bukwyrm Nov 23 '21 at 08:29

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