The little bit of Iran on a street in Greater Manchester

A crumbling mansion owned by the government of Iran sits abandoned in one of Greater Manchester's most exclusive areas. No-one seems able to get rid of it. Why? The derelict building seems out of place on a road lined with million-pound properties. This leafy spot should be prime real estate, but one house has been left to fall apart. Brackendene was once a grand site with greenhouses, outbuildings and a swimming pool. Now, the red-brick mansion has a hole for a roof and lies forgotten behind overgrown woodland and security fences. Thieves have long since stripped it of anything of value. It's been vandalised, used as an illegal dumping site and set on fire at least three times. The last big arson attack in 2011 was so bad that it caused the top floors to collapse into the basement. Image copyright Stephen Matthews/ Image caption The once-grand government building has fallen into a state of disrepair This isn't a run-of-the-mill story of a property left to decay, however. The house might be in Bowdon, a village in a rural area of Greater Manchester, but it actually belongs to Iran. Advertisement It was bought by the Iranians in the 1970s. The consul-general lived there at one stage and it was beautifully maintained, says Amir Barik, a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University who used to work for the consulate: "The biggest parties in Manchester used to take place in that house." Barik says that the building began to be left empty in the years after Iran's Islamic