The Bishops Avenue

The Bishops Avenue, London N2, connects the north side of Hampstead Heath at Kenwood (Hampstead Lane), Hampstead to East Finchley and is on the boundary of the London Boroughs of Barnet and Haringey. It is considered to be one of the wealthiest streets in the world, comparable with Beverly Hills. Many of the houses are influenced by designs of Ancient Greece and Rome and traditional English country houses. Average property prices on the avenue surpassed £1 million in the late 1980s and each property occupies a 2-3 acre plot. In 2006, the smallest houses in the street were selling for £5 million while a larger house, Turkish tycoon Halis Toprak's 30,000 sq ft (2,800 m2) Toprak Mansion, sold amidst great secrecy to the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, for £50 million in January 2008, making it one of the most expensive houses in the world, as listed by Forbes magazine.

It is named after the Bishops Wood through which it runs, formerly owned by the Bishop of London (as was much of the surrounding area) following a land grant in 704. In 1894 the Church of England let building plots for construction of homes on the road. In the 20th century much of the land was sold by the Church, which now only owns one house on the road (46, The Bishop's Avenue) and a nearby residential home.

The road is a favourite with the international 'über-rich' and is often referred to by its nickname of "Millionaires' Row" (although recently, it has been referred to as "Billionaires' Row"). This small street of 66 houses and the parallel Winnington Road display a variety of architectural styles.

Ten of the houses are owned by the House of Saud, whilst other notable owners of houses on the street include the Sultan of Brunei and members of the House of Bolkiah, publisher and newspaper magnate Richard Desmond (owner of two houses) and industrialist Lakshmi Mittal.

Former residents included Sir Billy Butlin, Dame Gracie Fields, Katie Boyle, Sir Peter Saunders (producer of the play The Mousetrap), the businessmen Asil Nadir and Emil Savundra and Heather Mills (the former wife of Paul McCartney), who owned an apartment there.

The road was repeatedly mentioned in Elton John's 1988 reworking of Give Peace a Chance ("Why not talk about Bishop's Avenue/I've got a lovely house on Bishop's Avenue") and the area's leading estate agent Trevor Abrahamson was quoted in 2006 as saying: "Among the wealthiest circles in the world, The Bishop's Avenue is better known than Buckingham Palace. It's a significant demonstration of status. If you live there, you don't need to explain to people that you're rich."