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Abandoned mansions the size of palaces lie in ruins as life goes on around them

The decline in these huge, once-grand mansions is striking.

[An aerial shot looking down at one of THe Bishops Avenue's derelict mansions, showing a completely destroyed roof]

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Many of the homes on this remarkable street are abandoned and derelict despite being palatial and worth millions(Image: Phil Harris)

It is just a short distance from some of the UK's most prestigious areas and has been called "the most expensive street in the world" and "Billionaire's Row". Home to more than 60 enormous mansions, worth a combined hundreds of millions of pounds at the very least, The Bishops Avenue has an extraordinary history which includes pop stars, royal families, tyrannical regimes and murder.

But while many of the palatial homes on this London street are still lived in, others lie empty and seemingly abandoned as the bustling life of affluent areas like Hampstead and Highgate goes on around them.

The owners of many of these mansions are a mystery, with ownership in many cases registered to companies based in off-shore tax havens and practically impossible to trace without forensic accountants. However, some owners are known, with the Saudi royal family behind an imposing collection of mansions called "The Towers", which they bought in the 1980s in case Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded. Another, Heath Hall, was owned by a Czech tycoon and has been rented out by stars including Justin Bieber and Salma Hayek.

And after the outbreak of war in Iran and across the wider Middle East, some of the mansions' links 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 haven for people linked to oppressive regimes to hide their wealth.

Sultans, secretive Russians and murder

Aristos Constantinou, the Greek-Cypriot fashion tycoon, was shot dead at home on this street, and another former owner, who once tried to organise a coup in Equitorial Guinea, died in a freak accident by falling down the stairs of another of his mansions in London's Holland Park.

[A ten-bedroom house on Bishops Avenue]

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This 10-bedroom house had already been empty 10 years when this photo was taken in 2016(Image: Isabel Infantes / SWNS.com)

Constantinou's murder is a notorious unsolved crime. He was said to have been shot dead by intruders on New Year's Day in 1985 in what later became known as the Silver Bullets Murder. His wife survived the attack. No one has ever been prosecuted for it.

[Millionaire fashion designer Aristos Constantinou , who was killed when he returned to his luxury Hampstead home after a party with his wife Elena, 26 (pictured with him).]

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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, Hampstead owned by millionaire fashion designer Aristos Constantinou , who was killed when he returned to his home after a party with his wife Elena.]

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The house in Bishop's Avenue owned by Constantinou at the time of his death(Image: PA)

Another home was once the fortified home of Salman Rushdie, who lived here in secret with 24-hour police protection after the state of Iran put a death warrant on his head. Another was home to a Nigerian politician it was seized by squatters after his death in 2007 and burned down.

[LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 15: A general view of the GBP3 million property "Longdrive" on The Bishops Avenue which has been taken over by squatters on July 15, 2009 in London, England. The Bishops Avenue has been nicknamed "Billionaire's Row" for the number of mansions owned by members of various royal families and some of the world's wealthiest people. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)]

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This multi-million pound property, pictured here in 2009, was taken over by squatters

[One of the street's large homes on fire, with flames seen in every window]

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Another house was destroyed by a huge fire in 2022(Image: London Fire Brigade / SWNS)

[A general view of the entrance to the GBP3 million property "Longdrive" on The Bishops Avenue which has been taken over by squatters on July 15, 2009 in London, England]

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The entrance to one abandoned mansion, pictured in 2009

Another of the houses, owned by an asset manager, was the scene of one of London's biggest robberies in 2006, where 2m of items were reportedly stolen. And yet another is where contestants on The Apprentice stay during the filming of the BBC series. It reportedly has eight bedrooms, nine bathrooms and is worth 17 million. Figures linked to Iran's rulers are reported to have bought up "at least 13" properties here worth around 75 million.

Home's owners impossible to trace

The history of the street is fascinating and mysterious. It was already being called "Millionaire's Row" by the 1930s, when the first handful of mansions were already in place.

Sugar magnate William Lyle was among its first residents, and was an early owner of Heath Hall, which Bieber reportedly rented more recently for 27,000 a week. The Sultan of Brunei, once the world's richest man, owned a house here too.

But the people behind many more are impossible to trace. Business Insider reports that 60% of them are owned by "hard-to-scrutinise shell corporations registered in foreign tax havens like the Bahamas, Panama, and the British Virgin Islands."

[This combination photo created on March 10, 2026 shows a handout picture provided by the office of Iran's supreme leader and taken in Tehran on October 3, 2024 of Mojtaba Khamenei (L) and a handout picture provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei showing him during a religious gathering in Tehran on February 19, 2026]

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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)

While hiding their wealth is clearly a motivation for some of the street's property owners, hiding altogether is what drives others.

"One gentleman from Russia never leaves The Bishops Avenue. He won't even go around the corner," a local property agent told Business Insider.

Other people who have owned property here include a former Lebanese prime minister, the last king of Greece, Constantine II, and the publisher and businessman Richard Desmond.

[A general view of Toprak Mansion on Bishop's Avenue]

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Toprak Mansion on Bishops Avenue, where Mikhail Gorbachev and Simon Cowell have been party guests(Image: PA)

One, called Toprak Mansion, is a 30,000 sq ft mansion built by the 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.

It had a Turkish bath that could hold 20 people. It was bought in 2013 by a company based 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."

[Another empty mansion on Bishops Avenue]

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The Bishops Avenue is an extraordinary mix of dozens of mansions, some lived in, many empty(Image: Google)

[Large house on Bishops Avenue, London, UK. (Photo by: Alex Segre/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)]

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Many homes on the street remain in impressive condition, like Heath Hall, pictured here(Image: Alex Segre/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

While many of the mansions lie in ruins, others have been developed. Hammerson House was opened as a care home in 2021, replacing one of the huge homes, while a few doors up another care home is set to open in 2025 as a luxury complex for older people with 93 flats over six storeys.

And The Towers, the enormous collection of properties bought by the Saudi royal family in the late 1980s, have now been sold to a developer with the aim reportedly being to turn them into luxury flats.

What's it like living on The Bishops Avenue?

One journalist who recently visited the street to try and find out said: "We cant actually tell you. So few people now live on The Bishops 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."

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Lots of the homes on The Bishops Avenue are still lived in and maintained(Image: Google)

[The street sign for The Bishops Avenue]

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The Bishops Avenue: 'So interesting that if it didn't exist it would need to be invented'(Image: SWNS)

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'Many of the gates stayed firmly shut, the only regular activity on the street is the private security guards who patrol around the clock' said one recent visitor to the street(Image: Google)

Another who visited last month said: "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."

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