The last Sunday of October, and the zones that suit an early dark

What changes on the last Sunday of October

At two in the morning on the last Sunday of October, British Summer Time ends and the clocks go back an hour to Greenwich Mean Time. In 2026 that falls in the early hours of Sunday 25 October. The effect on an evening is immediate. In the week before, the sun sets over London a little before six. In the week after, it is down before five, and by the end of November it has gone before four.

Guests who visit in the summer and return in the autumn tend to notice it the moment they step out of a meeting. The light has gone by the time the working day ends, the pavements are wet more often than not, and the city switches its lamps on before most people have thought about dinner. That changes how an evening feels and, more practically, which parts of London suit it.

The good news is that the early dark suits some zones far better than the long light ever did. The trick is knowing which, and moving the evening earlier to meet it rather than waiting for a nine o'clock that now arrives four hours after sunset.

An earlier evening, not a shorter one

The first adjustment is the clock. In July nobody wants to sit down to dinner in bright sunshine, so summer evenings start late. In November the dark arrives at teatime and there is no reason to wait for it. A six o'clock start, a drink in the first hour of darkness and dinner at seven, is the natural shape of a winter evening in London, and it leaves the rest of the night free.

That is precisely the shape of the unhurried evening, three hours at £700, placed between six and nine. You get the lamps coming on, a long dinner and a walk back through lit streets, and you are indoors before the real cold settles. Many guests who book in winter find they prefer it to anything they did in the summer.

Belgravia under the lamps

Belgravia is the zone that gains most from the change. On a summer afternoon its white stucco squares can look bleached and empty. After dark in November they become something else entirely: the terraces lit from below, the long curve of Wilton Crescent, the tall first floor windows of Eaton Square glowing above the railings, and almost nobody on the pavements. A walk from Motcomb Street through Belgrave Square to Eaton Place at half past five is one of the quiet pleasures of a London winter.

The district's small restaurants suit the season too. The rooms on Motcomb Street, Elizabeth Street and Eccleston Street are warm, close and lit low, and an early table is easy to come by. For a drink beforehand, The Grenadier, a small pub tucked into Wilton Row, a cobbled mews off Wilton Crescent, is exactly the kind of place a dark evening seems made for.

The women who live in and around the district know the squares better in the dark than in daylight. Sonya, just across the border in Knightsbridge, prefers an early table in any season and is at her best in exactly this kind of evening: six o'clock, a clear finish, nothing hurried.

The water at Canary Wharf

The other zone that improves is the one people least expect. Canary Wharf by daylight is glass and offices. At five o'clock on a November evening the towers are lit floor by floor, the docks are black and still, and every lit window is doubled in the water. The walk from Cabot Square along the dock edge to West India Quay, past the old Georgian warehouses, is at its best in that first hour of dark.

The estate's own routine adds to it. Office workers are still leaving at six, so the bars by the water are busy early, and by eight the place has emptied. In January the estate also puts on its annual festival of light installations around the squares and along the dock edges, which is worth planning an evening around. Nobody on the board lives in E14, so a wharf booking needs a few hours of notice, and in the early evening the office may plan her journey by train rather than through rush hour traffic.

What to save for spring

Some of the evenings that are perfect in July do not survive the change. Riverside terraces and rooftop bars lose their point once the view is black and the wind is up. The towpath at Little Venice, lovely on a summer night, is dark, damp and slippery by November. Kensington Gardens shuts its gates at dusk, so a walk that took in the park in June becomes a walk along the railings in winter.

The pavement tables of Chelsea and the courtyard terraces of Mayfair carry on under heaters and blankets, and some guests enjoy that. For a first evening in the dark, though, an inside table and a lamplit walk will nearly always beat an outdoor table eaten in a coat. Keep the terraces, the canal and the long park walks for the week the clocks go forward again, on the last Sunday of March.

Practical notes for the dark months

The first wet evenings after the change tend to be slow ones for taxis in the middle of town, and journey times stretch. The office widens its arrival windows to match and tells you so, rather than quoting a summer time it cannot keep. If you are booking for that first week, a little more notice goes a long way.

Bring a proper coat, and expect her to arrive in one. Laura, who lives in Paddington and owns a coat made for London weather, is a sensible choice for a wet November night, and Angelika, an early riser who is easiest to place at seven, suits the earlier start. Both are on the toned list, as is Sonya. Whoever you choose, she receives the fee in person at the door, whatever the weather is doing.

For one street that looks its best on a winter evening, read our piece on Sloane Street, which runs from Knightsbridge down to Sloane Square along the western edge of Belgravia, with the gardens of Cadogan Place lit behind their railings halfway down.