Such auctions include the sale of high quality antique paintings, furniture, objets d'art, tapestries, books, and other household items.
A high quality auction catalogue is also published, giving details and photographs of the lots, including provenance, technical descriptions and estimated sale price ranges.
The largest on-site contents auction to date, by proceeds value, is Viscount Leverhulme's Thornton Manor in the Wirral, raising over £9.5 million in 2001.
However, in present-day values, the largest is still probably the Earl of Rosebery's Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, which generated over £6 million in 1977.
Additionally, there can be the sale of paintings no longer in situ, but on loan to galleries, such as the 7th Duke of Sutherland of Mertoun House who sold Titian’s Diana and Actaeon for £50m in 2008 and Diana and Callisto for £45m in 2012 to the British and Scottish National Galleries, both originally hanging in Bridgewater House from 1854 until 1939.