Brimming with grandeur and luxury, the world's most splendid stately homes are a sight to behold and many are still in the same families they were built by hundreds of years ago. Click or scroll through, and feast your eyes on our pick of the most magnificent family seats, from Winston Churchill's birthplace to the finest Gilded Age mansions America has to offer.

America's largest privately-owned house, Biltmore in North Carolina was built for George Washington Vanderbilt II in the late 19th century. The colossal Gilded Age mansion, which is still owned by a scion of the Vanderbilt family, sprawls over 178,926 square feet.

The gigantic house, which was modeled on the Château de Blois in France's Loire Valley, was built over a six-year period by thousands of workers, and features more than 250 exquisitely-decorated rooms. The epic mansion is now open to the public 365 days a year.

Fitting for one of the world's most wealthy families, the house is spectacular in every regard. The biggest room in the house, the medieval-style banqueting hall, seriously wows with a seven-story high ceiling, intricately-carved wooden paneling and a supersized table that seats 30-plus diners.

Vanderbilt traveled throughout Europe and Asia collecting fabulous antiques and paintings for his capacious country home. Needless to say, Biltmore is a treasure trove of art, and works by the likes of Renoir and Sargent hang on its walls, as well as a selection of breathtaking 16th-century tapestries. Its value is estimated at $193 million.

Considered the grandest country house in England, Blenheim Palace in Woodstock is the only non-royal, non-ecclesiastical palace in the land. Steeped in history, the estate is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Baroque palace was built by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, between 1705 and 1722, and is the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. While Blenheim is now open to the public, the current Duke and his family still reside there, albeit in a modest farmhouse on the estate.

Blenheim Palace is chock-full of antique furnishings and is home to an important collection of paintings. The most spectacular rooms include the cavernous Great Hall, the sumptuous saloon and roomy library, which displays an enviable collection of Churchill memorabilia.

The non-royal palace sits in eight square kilometers of perfectly landscaped parklands, which were designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. It's estimated to be worth $125 million. Best seen from the sky, the designs are beautifully realized by a huge team of staff who maintain the house and grounds throughout the year.

The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, is another extravagant country home built by the Vanderbilts – the closest thing America has to a royal family. The 70-room Italian Renaissance-style palazzo was constructed for Cornelius Vanderbilt II between 1893 and 1895, and is set on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

The grandest of the so-called Newport 'cottages', The Breakers was built as a summer home. Now owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County, the mansion is open to the public all year round.

The mansion features 70 rooms with a total floor space of 62,484 square feet arranged over five floors. The dazzling Morning Room, for instance, was built by artisans in France, shipped to the US and assembled on site, and is adorned with wall panels made from pure platinum.

The Great Hall, which is the largest room in the house, is wonderfully ostentatious with its OTT gilding, swish marble columns and fancy stonework. In fact, every single room in the house is lavishly decorated, reflecting the wealth and power of the Vanderbilt family. There are no estimates of its current value.

This Hogwarts-esque beauty on the Isle of Bute in Scotland is widely recognized as one of the UK's finest Gothic Revival mansions. Mount Stuart House was built for John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute in the late 1870s, who at the time was the UK's wealthiest person.

No expense has been spared on this place. The chapel, one of the house's star attractions, packs in more rare Carrara white marble than any other building in the British Isles and boasts even more of the white stuff than the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

The 3rd Marquess was a fan of the very latest technology and Mount Stuart was the first house in Scotland to run on electricity. The moneyed marquess also installed the world's first indoor heated swimming pool and one of the planet's first telephones.

Bestowed with more than its fair share of treasures, the house is an antiques paradise and a haven for scholars – its extensive library houses a multitude of valuable manuscripts, including Shakespeare's First Folio. If this has got you in the Harry Potter mood, check out these magical homes that look like Hogwarts. 

This humongous country pile in south Yorkshire is the largest private house in the UK. Double the size of Buckingham Palace, Wentworth Woodhouse has a staggering five miles of corridors, 250,000 square feet of floor space and a room for every day of the year. 

A fusion of Baroque and Palladian architecture, the house was vastly expanded in the 18th century by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham. It was inherited by the Earls Fitzwilliam in the late 18th century and remained in the family until 1979.

The house is currently owned by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust, which acquired the property for $8.8 million in February 2016. After being closed to the public for over 60 years, the Trust has just started offering guided tours of the house.

While large sections of the house were restored by the previous owner, architect Clifford Newbold, 'the Versailles of the North' is in pretty bad shape. Wentworth Woodhouse reportedly requires works totaling $53 million. Luckily, the UK government is contributing $9.5 million towards the restoration project. 

Canada's poshest home, Casa Loma is a landmark Gothic Revival mansion located in midtown Toronto. The turreted house was built over a three-year period from 1911 to 1914 for financier Sir Henry Pellatt.

When the house was completed in 1914, it was the largest in Canada with a total of 98 rooms covering 64,700 square feet. Casa Loma has all the trappings of an elite stately home with its showy state rooms and royalty-worthy guest suites.

The house has a number of unique features, too, from two secret underground tunnels to a super-retro bowling alley in the basement, not to mention an in-house theater and a perfectly round room. 

Now a museum and events space, Casa Loma is open to the public all year long. The house is a popular wedding venue and has featured in several movies, including X-Men, Chicago and The Pacifier. Its value today has been estimated at over $76 million.

Recognize this iconic country pile? Of course you do. Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England, doubled as the Crawley family seat in the hit TV show Downton Abbey and has been used as a location for countless other TV shows, music videos and movies including Eyes Wide Shut.

The ancestral home of the Earls of Carnarvon, the Jacobethan mansion, which dates from 1679 and was rebuilt in the Victorian era, is set in 1,000 acres of glorious parkland designed by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Highclere is open to the public in the summer and at select times during the rest of the year.

The house, which is owned and managed by the 8th Earl and Countess, has over 50 bedrooms and scores of elegant reception rooms, including the ornate music room, the library, which stocks 6,000 rare books, and the main galleried saloon with its stone fireplace and Old Master paintings.The 5th Earl of Carnarvon famously co-discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 and as a result, Highclere houses an impressive collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the basement exhibition area, from prized pottery to jewelry. If it was ever put up for sale it would be worth north of $190 million.

Hungry for more? Discover the incredible secrets of these abandoned stately homes