Abandoned Buckinghamshire: Mentmore Towers

“You guys aren’t getting in.”

Me: ‘Bet you a fiver’

I’d wanted to explore Mentmore Towers for ages, but now there was a crisp £5 note on the line too…

History of Mentmore Towers

If you haven’t heard of the Rothschild family, I’d be very surprised, this family is one of the wealthiest in history.

When Mentmore Towers was built from 1852 to 1854, the first of several estates the Rothschilds would go on to build, they moved the entire village of Mentmore, just so the Rothschilds could build their estate on the best spot at the top of the hill where the village was situated. No-one really complained though, because most of the village lived in poor conditions and the Rothschilds ensured everyone got a nice home to move to, that didn’t slash with the old style feel of the village. The Rothschilds even paid for the church to be restored.

So, to reiterate how rich the Rothschilds are, they:-

Moved an entire village, just so they could get the best spot.
Gave everyone in the village a significant upgrade in their living accommodations for life.
Kept the style and feel of a traditional and historic village.
Paid for a key building in the village to be restored to its former glory.
Then built one of the most lavish estates in the history of the UK next to the village they just moved.-

Then built several other mansions of similar, if not more lavish nature..

..I can’t wrap my head around this.

When constructed, Mentmore Towers was a shining example of how even though the rich get their own way, they can do so in a way that is fair to those around them and increases the quality of life of everyone nearby.

The mansion was designed to replicate the lavish looks of mansions from the 15th and 16th Century, so even though the building is only 170 years old, it has the external appearance of something significantly older. The mansion was also built as a country home for one of the Rothschilds, as well as a building to store art.

The mansion passed from Rothschild to Rothschild through the generations, with race horses being bred on the land as well as more art being acquired and displayed. In WWII, to protect them from the Blitz, art pieces from the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Collection were sent to Mentmore as well as the world famous golden state carriage, which sat under constant watch and guard in the quiet mansion, well out of harms way, while German planes worked around the clock to flatten London with bombs. Although nearby villages were hit with bombs, Mentmore remained untouched and unaffected by WW2.

In the 70s, with the Rothschilds relinquishing ownership of the Mentmore estate, the contents, land and mansion itself were auctioned off. There were talks of the National Trust taking over the estate, but the rough cost would’ve been £2,000/day (in todays money) to run the mansion and a deal was never finalised. The Maharishi Foundation bought the physical building of Mentmore Towers for just over £1 million (in todays money), whereas the land of the estate surrounding the mansion was purchased separately.

The Maharishi Foundation used Mentmore as their base for the Transcendental Movement (a practise of twice-a-day meditation). It was also used as a filming site for many music videos and films, famously standing in as Wayne Manor in Christopher Nolan’s world renowned Batman Begins and is used in the opening of Johnny English, a comedy spy film about the most disastrous spy MI7 has to offer. The building was then sold yet again in 1999 to property investor and developer: Simon Halabi.

Halabi’s plan was to convert the building into a luxury 6-star resort, spa and golf club. Despite a few legal setbacks, The plan was legally approved by the high court and all looked well for his plan to go ahead.

All that changed in 2008.

The financial crisis of’ 08 brought his plans to a screeching halt and Halabi filed for bankruptcy. Despite this, he never sold the mansion and remains the owner to this day. Despite his plans and still owning the building, the lavish mansion sits abandoned.

Mentmore Towers Today

In the 2020’s, Historic England ran some examinations of the site and shockingly discovered just how bad things had become. Along with a few urban explorers getting into the mansion and showing the conditions inside on cameras, a big song and dance was made in the media about how bad the building was deteriorating, especially when it comes to the roof starting to fall apart, opening the inside to the elements.

A major building, playing its part in British history, architecture and culture now stands in danger of being destroyed by neglect and disrepair. Despite all these warnings and efforts for Halabi to release his hold on the mansion so an other owner can restore the beloved mansion, Halabi still uncompromisingly retains ownership and control of Mentmore Towers and as far as what is publicly known, nothing has happened on the estate to address the damage from neglect for many years.

Mentmore had started as an example of how the rich could have their way while helping the lives around them, but today, it stands as monument of how the rich can be greedy and uncompromising in their ways, willing to let significant history rot in front of them, just…because.

Scouting The Site

I had no idea about Mentmore Towers for many years, despite growing up in a nearby town. So when I found out one of the best explores in the UK existed on my doorstep for most of my life, I kicked myself.

From 2022 onwards, I became fascinated with the idea of going to Mentmore, however, so had everyone else. Urban explorers exploring the site through the pandemic had encouraged security to get significantly tighter and the building was now armed to the teeth with motion sensors and cameras. Security was constant and as shown online, very uncompromising. One recent encounter in late 2024 shows urban explorers encounter guards wielding chains. Thames Valley Police had also released a statement in the local news in 2024 stating they were becoming VERY efficient at showing up to Mentmore to address calls regarding break-ins.

Two things were clear about exploring Mentmore Towers: access was tricky and you were VERY likely to be caught.

I’d scouted the area several times since 2022 and mapped the area, but every time, dogs patrolled, vehicles roamed and security slowly milled around the site. However, on one day in particular in 2025, security seemed to be quite relaxed and despite there being one definite and live security vehicle, this was the quietest the Mentmore estate had ever seemed. I returned the following day and it was the same story: Only one car, albeit different this time. Spurred on by the discovery that some urban explorers had managed to get into the mansion less than 2 weeks prior, I gave Michael a call. I asked him if he was free in the morning…

Exploring Mentmore Towers

As the sun rose above us in the frosty morning air, we met at a pre-determined point. I brain stormed several access points into the building I’d found from my scouting, including one shattered window on the ground floor. We discussed tactics, examined a diagram that showed where motion sensors were and set off. With a crisp £5 on the line, we briskly walked onto the land, even as we crossed the vast Mentmore Golf course towards the elegant Rothschild mansion, we saw cameras secured to trees, meant to observe access points onto the land, as they watched us.

We kept our heads down and pushed our way forward, one short climb up a steep embankment and we were now covered by trees and bushes. We peered out of the bushes to see the west sidesteps of Mentmore Towers, with the towers themselves standing proud atop them in the chilly morning sunlight. Mike and I knew we were on borrowed time and he asked what tactic I wanted to go for, we could either:

1: Go slowly and stealthily before we were eventually caught

2: Go quickly and maximise what we can see before we were eventually caught

I decided we were to operate as stealthily as possible, avoiding cameras and sensors until we had no choice but to go out in the open. We made our way clockwise around the building to the North side of the building where there’s a small access courtyard, but with motion sensors littering the areas and cameras everywhere on this side of the building, there was no way we were getting into the yard. We slowly moved back under cover and made our way clockwise around to the other side of the building.

As we approached the South side of Mentmore Towers, we had no choice but to move into the open as the south-facing windows looked out across open estate and countryside. The cover of trees and hedges ended abruptly, with a couple of sneakily-placed motion sensors placed behind hedges to catch trespassers out. We could evade the motion sensors, but there was no way we would avoid being seen by someone monitoring the cameras. As we crept out into the open, we both knew the cameras would see us and from this moment onwards, we were absolutely on borrowed time.

We judged our distances between motion sensors and slowly made our way to the East side of Mentmore Towers, this is the main entrance of the building and is nothing short of domineering and impressive, we looked around, even walking right up to the door, stunned at the elegance of it all. Stunned how something so beautiful can be left to rot.

As we continued around the East side and back towards the North side with the courtyard, we froze and ducked behind cover as we saw that a new car was now on site. Having scouted the site the two days prior, I hadn’t seen this car, so someone was definitely here, more than likely private security. We couldn’t tell if someone was inside the car or not. Once again, we quickly debated our next angle of attack. We could try sneaking past the car and trying some nearby vents in the ground, or we could retreat the other direction. I thought it was likely we, surprisingly, hadn’t been seen yet as were right on top of security, they hadn’t seen us, they hadn’t come out looking for us and we hadn’t exactly been the stealthiest of explorers moving out in the open on a bright winter morning.

We made our way back clockwise around the east side, avoiding sensors and keeping our heads down to the cameras. We started edging along the south side of the building. Frustratingly, the entrance of the broken window that I had thought I’d seen when I scouted the area was a false hope and I cursed myself for potentially blowing our only chance to get into Mentmore Towers. We proceed around the building clockwise, hugging the wall as close as possible and peering in through the windows at the beauty within,wondering if we had any hope at all of access.

Wondering if I would get my £5…

There was one window we found which was glass-free, but frustratingly had metal bars across it to prevent explorers climbing through. Mike put his hand and his phone inside the building to take a couple of pictures and I wondering if that would technically count as being’inside Mentmore’for my £5.

As we came back to the North side, yet again, I peered around the corner, I saw sheds, storage and possibly our way in. A ground vent was covered by an unsecured piece of wood and a motion sensor was aimed directly at it. I told Mike to peer around and say what he thought, he thought it could be our best way in. I stayed low to stay out of the line of fire of the motion sensor and slowly pushed the wood off the vent cover. I peered down and saw what I thought was a cross section of tunnels. I told Mike to stay hidden until I confirmed it was a way in and lowered myself into the ground.

I touched down and peered around, unfortunately, it was a red herring, the tunnels down here were sealed off well and good. A gap in a metal barrier in front of me gave me a glimpse of a room full of building supplies. With that, I climbed back out, cursing myself yet again for being so close, being stood in the underground tunnels of Mentmore Towers…and yet…so far.

We made our way back under the cover of bushes and trees and peered at the central courtyard pondering the possibility of trying to access the courtyard. We had, after all, made it this far, why didn’t we go the full hog?

But, we decided against it. We had done a full orbit both ways around Mentmore Towers without being spotted and we weren’t about to blow it. We had gathered critical information about accessibility, gauged the security, or lack of it on this particular morning and could now leave without getting caught, something a lot of Urban Explorers don’t get to do.

We crossed the western garden, capturing a few final pictures, before making our way back under cover and retreating away from Mentmore.

As we walked away, we could breathe again, but we were also a little confused. Mentmore Towers is viewed upon in the urbex world as being in the‘big leagues’of urban exploring, the risk is extreme, but the reward is so captivating. The chances of you getting seen and/or caught before you even get near the building are extremely high so you must tread carefully and appreciate every second of your explore because you won’t have much time…

.and yet…even though there was definite evidence that SOMEONE was on site, we saw…no-one.

We talked about other urbexers who had got inside Mentmore and what they had done differently, we agreed some almost definitely broke their way in, given the smashed windows we had seen that were shoddily covered, but breaking and entering is something we never do.

Despite not getting inside the actual building, we did have a good crack at Mentmore Towers, we stayed stealthy, we weren’t seen, we set off no alarms and we walked away from the mansion with massive grins on our faces. Not everyone gets the chance to get as close to Mentmore as we did.

But still, a deal is a deal, I passed Mike a £5 note and told him to give it to Leo when he saw her, although we had been painfully close, we didn’t get inside the mansion. Even as we walked away, I glanced back at the building. Personally, I don’t think this will be the last time Discover.re has a shot at Mentmore…

Still, the building was only one part of the explore. We decided to cross the estate and try our hand at exploring the Mentmore Golf Club that was abandoned 10 years ago this year (2025), but that’s an entry for another time…

Last Updated on 26 January 2025 by Michael