Wentworth Woodhouse

Wentworth Woodhouse is a Grade I listed country house near the village of Wentworth, in the vicinity of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It served as "One of the great Whig political palaces". Its East Front is 606-foot (185 m) long, making it the longest country house façade in Europe. It is also the largest private house in the United Kingdom. The house comprises 365 rooms and covers an area of over 2.5 acres (1.0 ha). It is surrounded by a 150-acre (61 ha) park and by an estate of 90,000-acre (36,000 ha), which is now separately owned. An existing Jacobean house was entirely rebuilt by Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham (1693–1750), and then reduced to the status of a mere wing by the immense scale of the new great addition made by his son the 2nd Marquess, who was twice Prime Minister, and who established at Wentworth Woodhouse an important Whig powerhouse. In the 19th.c. it was inherited by the Earls Fitzwilliam, who owned it until 1989, having profited greatly from the great quantities of underground coal on the estate.