They vowed to turn this empty mansion into a homeless refuge, but instead a group of anarchist squatters have been evicted by force.
British police and bailiffs descended on the palatial five-story town house in London's Eaton Square, near Buckingham Palace, in a court-ordered dawn raid.
Dozens of people emerged from the house with bags of clothes and blankets and boxes of food in the early hours of Wednesday morning, ending a headline-grabbing stunt aimed at draw attention to the problem of homelessness - and the thousands of London homes that are sitting empty, reports news.
The property is understood to be owned by mysterious Russian banker Andrey Goncharenko, but is thought to have remained unoccupied since he bought it in 2014.
Activists calling themselves the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians had occupied the $25 million mansion for a week, inviting homeless people inside to watch anarchist films, stencil-spray paint T-shirts and play football in the library using a ball made with rolled-up duct tape.