Stately homes for sale – pick your property

Cliveden Hall, Berkshire: Cliveden, once home to Nancy Astor and mired in the Profumo scandal in the 1960s, recently unveiled the world’s most expensive afternoon tea – £550 for two people. Queen Victoria, a frequent guest, was not amused in 1893 when the house was bought by William Waldorf Astor, America’s richest citizen. It soon became a social hub, with guests ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt to George Bernard Shaw. Harold Macmillan, another regular guest, when told that the house was eventually to become a hotel, remarked “My dear boy, it always has been” Photograph: Alamy

Ickworth Hall Hotel the former home of the Marquis of Bristol, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England Photograph: Albanpix Ltd / Rex Features/Albanpix Ltd / Rex Features

Royal Crescent, Bath: Staying at the Royal Crescent in Bath has been compared to stepping into the pages of a Jane Austen novel. Its architecture has remained unchanged since the 18th century when it was built as part of the Royal Crescent by John Wood the Younger Photograph: Getty Images/Gallo Images

Ston Easton Park luxury hotel, Midsomer Norton Somerset: Dates back to the mid-18th century and is set within gardens created by landscape gardener Humphry Repton. They include an ice house, a ruined grotto fountain, a sham castle, a plunge pool and Palladian bridges over the river Photograph: Alamy

Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire: The earliest account of the manor is in the time of King Athelstan (925-940), the grandson of King Alfred the Great. King Athelstan and William the Conqueror stayed at the castle, as did Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Mary Tudor Photograph: Alamy

Amberley Castle in West Sussex, which dates back to 1140 Photograph: Alamy