Abandoned mansions as big as palaces lie in ruins as life goes on around them
Abandoned mansions the size of palaces lie in ruins as life goes on around them (Image: Getty)
Just a stone’s throw away from some of the UK’s most prestigious areas is one of the most remarkable streets you’ll find anywhere. It has been dubbed “the most expensive street in the world” and “Billionaire’s Row”. But the staggering wealth is not the only thing that stands out — it’s how many of these grand mansions, each worth tens of millions of pounds, have been left to fall into ruin.
Home to over 60 huge homes, The Bishops Avenue boasts an extraordinary history that encompasses pop stars, royal families, despotic regimes and murder. However, whilst many of the opulent residences on this London street are still occupied, others stand vacant and seemingly deserted as the vibrant life of affluent areas like Hampstead and Highgate continues around them.
The proprietors of many of these mansions remain a mystery, with ownership in numerous instances registered to companies based in offshore tax havens and virtually impossible to trace without forensic accountants. Nonetheless, some owners are known, with the Saudi royal family behind an impressive collection of mansions named “The Towers”, which they purchased in the 1980s in case Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded. Another, Heath Hall, was owned by a Czech magnate and has been rented out by celebrities including Justin Bieber and Salma Hayek.
The incredible Heath Hall was owned by a Czech magnate and has been rented out by celebrities including Justin Bieber and Salma Hayek (Image: Alex Segre/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The Bishops Avenue: ‘So interesting that if it didn’t exist it would need to be invented’ (Image: SWNS)
And following the outbreak of war in Iran and across the broader Middle East, some of the mansions’ connections to the very top of the Iranian regime and “supreme leader” Mojtaba Khamenei himself are being reported, with UK politicians demanding an urgent investigation into fears that the UK has become a sanctuary for individuals linked to oppressive regimes to conceal their wealth.
Sultans, secretive Russians and murder
Aristos Constantinou, the Greek-Cypriot fashion magnate, was shot dead at his residence on this street, and another previous occupant, who once attempted to orchestrate a coup in Equitorial Guinea, perished in a bizarre accident by tumbling down the staircase of another of his properties in London’s Holland Park.
Constantinou’s killing remains a notorious unsolved crime. He was reportedly shot dead by intruders on New Year’s Day in 1985 in what subsequently became known as the “Silver Bullets Murder”. His wife survived the assault. Nobody has ever been prosecuted for it.
Millionaire fashion designer Aristos Constantinou was killed when he returned to his luxury home after a party with his wife Elena, pictured with him here (Image: PA)
The house in Bishop’s Avenue owned by Constantinou at the time of his death (Image: PA)
Another residence was formerly the fortified dwelling of Salman Rushdie, who resided here in secrecy with round-the-clock police protection after the state of Iran issued a death warrant on his head. Another was occupied by a Nigerian politician – it was seized by squatters following his death in 2007 and burnt down.
Another of the properties, belonging to an asset manager, was the location of one of London’s largest robberies in 2006, where £2m worth of items were reportedly taken. And yet another is where participants on The Apprentice reside during the filming of the BBC series. It reportedly contains eight bedrooms, nine bathrooms and is valued at £17 million. Individuals connected to Iran’s rulers are reported to have purchased “at least 13” properties here worth approximately £75 million.
Lots of the homes on The Bishops Avenue are still lived in and maintained (Image: Google)
Home’s owners impossible to trace
The street’s history is intriguing and enigmatic. By the 1930s, it was already being dubbed “Millionaire’s Row”, when the initial few mansions were already established.
Among its earliest inhabitants was sugar tycoon William Lyle, an early proprietor of Heath Hall, which Bieber is said to have recently rented for a weekly rate of £27,000. The Sultan of Brunei, once the wealthiest man globally, also owned a residence here.
The entrance to one abandoned mansion, pictured in 2009 (Image: Getty)
However, the identities behind many more are impossible to uncover. Business Insider reveals that 60% of them are held by “hard-to-scrutinise shell corporations registered in foreign tax havens like the Bahamas, Panama, and the British Virgin Islands.”
Whilst concealing their wealth is evidently a motive for some of the street’s property owners, others are driven by the desire to hide entirely.
“One gentleman from Russia never leaves The Bishops Avenue. He won’t even go around the corner,” a local estate agent disclosed to Business Insider.
One house was destroyed by a huge fire in 2022 (Image: London Fire Brigade / SWNS)
This 10-bedroom house had already been empty 10 years when this photo was taken in 2016 (Image: Isabel Infantes / SWNS.com)
Other individuals who have owned property here include a former Lebanese prime minister, the last king of Greece, Constantine II, and publisher and businessman Richard Desmond.
One, known as Toprak Mansion, is a 30,000 sq ft mansion constructed by Turkish entrepreneur Halis Toprak in the 1990s, which achieved the highest sale price seen in Britain in 2008, when it was sold for £50 million to a Kazakhstani billionaire.
Toprak Mansion on Bishops Avenue, where Mikhail Gorbachev and Simon Cowell have been party guests (Image: PA)
It featured a Turkish bath capable of accommodating 20 individuals. It was purchased in 2013 by a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands for £66 million, The Sunday Times reports.
“The Bishops Avenue is so interesting that you could say if it didn’t exist it would need to be invented,” Trevor Abrahmsohn, a luxury property consultant, told The Sunday Times, adding: “A house starts off being owned by the Savile Row-tailored businessmen with posh voices, and ends up being run by the Mujahideen.”
While many of the street’s mansions are maintained and seemingly lived in, others are ruined (Image: Phil Harris)
Whilst numerous mansions lie derelict, others have been redeveloped. Hammerson House was launched as a care facility in 2021, replacing one of the substantial homes, whilst a few doors along another care residence is scheduled to open in 2025 as a luxury development for elderly residents with 93 flats across six storeys.
Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei (left), who took over after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US attack earlier this year — Mojtaba Khamenei is linked to property on the street (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The Bishops Avenue is an extraordinary mix of dozens of mansions, some lived in, many empty (Image: Google)
And The Towers, the vast collection of properties acquired by the Saudi royal family in the late 1980s, have now been sold to a developer with the objective reportedly being to transform them into luxury apartments.
A general view from the street of one of the mansions on The Bishops Avenue (Image: Google)
What’s it like living on The Bishops Avenue?
One journalist who recently visited the street attempting to discover said: “We can’t actually tell you. So few people now live on The Bishop’s Avenue, you would be hard pressed to find inhabitants. Many of the gates stayed firmly shut. The only regular activity on the street is the private security guards who patrol around the clock in hi-vis jackets and armed with radios.”
Another visitor from last month remarked: “I was confronted by the state of some of its houses: one of disrepair. Some of its glamorous past is firmly in the rear-view mirror. These massive properties stand empty, when they should be being enjoyed by families or individuals – people who act in the right way and deserve them – in a beautiful part of the capital.”
