Wollaton is a classic prodigy house, "the architectural sensation of its age",[2] though its builder was not a leading courtier and its construction stretched the resources he mainly obtained from coalmining; the original family home was at the bottom of the hill.

[7] The architectural historian Mark Girouard has suggested that the design is in fact derived from Nikolaus de Lyra's reconstruction, and Josephus's description, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem,[8] with a more direct inspiration being the mid-16th century Mount Edgcumbe in Cornwall, which Smythson knew.

The decorative gondola mooring rings carved in stone on the exterior walls offer some evidence of this, as do other architectural features.

The window tracery of the upper floors in the central block and the general busyness of the decoration look back to the Middle Ages,[6] and have been described as "fantasy-Gothic".

[6] Paintings on the ceilings of the two main staircases and round the walls of one are attributed to Sir James Thornhill and perhaps also Louis Laguerre, carried out around 1700.

[11]The gallery of the main hall contains Nottinghamshire's oldest pipe organ, thought to date from the end of the 17th century, possibly by the builder Gerard Smith.

Beneath the hall are many cellars and passages, and a well and associated reservoir tank, in which some accounts report that an admiral of the Willoughby family took a daily bath.

They include the Wollaton Antiphonal and the single manuscript holding the 13th-century post-Arthurian romance Le Roman de Silence.

The prospect room at the top of the house, and the kitchens in the basement, were opened up for the public to visit, though this must be done on one of the escorted tours.

[21] On display are some of the items from the three quarters of a million specimens that make up its zoology, geology, and botany collections.

[22] From July 2021 to August 2022, the Nottingham Natural History Museum featured the world's first exhibit of Titus, a "real" Tyrannosaurus rex fossil which was discovered in Montana, in the United States, in 2014.