Exclusive: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe spends first days reunited with family at Chancellor’s Georgian mansion

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family spent their first days together in Britain staying at a government-owned grace-and-favour mansion in the Buckinghamshire countryside, The Telegraph can reveal.

The British-Iranian national, who was imprisoned in Tehran for nearly six years until her release this week, was driven from RAF Brize Norton in the early hours of Thursday morning to Dorneywood, a country home historically used by Chancellors of the Exchequer.

She stayed there until Saturday morning with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella, and was pictured on Friday making pizzas with them in the house’s large professional kitchen.

Dorneywood is an 18th-century Georgian property donated to the National Trust in 1947 by Lord Courtauld-Thomson, a British businessman who had previously used it to house officers from the allied air forces.

It sits in 215 acres of parkland and woodland, and boasts a swimming pool, conservatory and croquet lawn famously used by the house’s former occupant, John Prescott.

Generally, the house has been used by Chancellors of the Exchequer, but the Prime Minister can choose to allow any member of the Government to use it. In recent years it has been used by Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak.

Like Chequers, the Prime Minister’s grace-and-favour home, and Chevening, which is usually used by the Foreign Secretary, the house is managed by a trust overseen by peers, aristocrats and heritage experts.

Government departments can request use of the house from the trust, which was this week snapped up by the Foreign Office, who designated it as a “safe house” for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family.

The family were sworn to secrecy on the location of the property in an attempt to allow them to reunite in peace, outside of the glare of the media.

Broadcasters positioned a camera outside their London house for two days after Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s return to the UK in the hope of picturing their return home.

On Friday Mr Ratcliffe tweeted that his wife and daughter were making pizzas in the kitchen, accompanied by a photograph at Dorneywood that was quickly copied by Tulip Siddiq, a Labour MP who has been campaigning for his wife’s release.

The Telegraph understands he was later contacted by Foreign Office officials who asked him to delete it because they were concerned it would allow their location to be identified.

Mr Ratcliffe has been prolific in the British media since his wife’s imprisonment in Iran in April 2016, after she was accused of training journalists in the country - a claim he has always denied.

He has completed two hunger strikes since her internment in an attempt to persuade ministers to do more to secure her release.

The Iranian regime finally agreed to allow her to leave the country this week, after Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, negotiated a deal involving the UK repaying a decades-old debt of £400million.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was accompanied by Anoosheh Ashoori, 66, a fellow British-Iranian national imprisoned by the regime in 2017.

As Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe disembarked from her jet at RAF Brize Norton in the early hours of Thursday morning, seven-year-old Gabriella was heard to exclaim: “Mummy!” Mr Ratcliffe told reporters that the trio were “looking forward to a new life”.

"You can't get back the time that's gone,” he said.

“That's a fact. But we live in the future."

Ms Truss tweeted on their return to the UK: “Delighted that Nazanin and Anoosheh have landed safely in the UK and are reunited with their families and loved ones. Welcome home.”