Escorts in Bayswater, W2: who is close, and how soon
Why stay in Bayswater when the meetings are somewhere else? Because that is what Bayswater is for. Very little business is done in the district itself: it is garden squares, stucco terraces and hotels along the top of Kensington Gardens, with hardly an office block among them. What it offers the working visitor is everything around it: straight lines into the West End and the City, Paddington's trains to the airport and the west, embassies a short walk away, conference rooms on the park edge, and a park to walk off the day. For Bayswater escorts booked by a working visitor, the evening starts when the working day finally lets go, and the district suits exactly that hour.
On the ground
Bayswater in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameW2 4RJ, W2 2TY, W2 4DU, W2 1EE.
Nearest stations
Walking timeBayswater, 1 minute. Queensway, 3 minutes. Paddington, 7 minutes.
Getting there
W2Travel is included across Zones 1 and 2, and counted from the moment the hour is set rather than from when she leaves.
On the board
Nearest prints to Bayswater
Who works here
On the board in Bayswater
The eight prints above are a first shortlist for Bayswater tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
Where the working day actually happens
Anyone sleeping here on business works somewhere else, and the district's value is how directly it reaches that somewhere: the Central line from Queensway runs straight through Marble Arch, Bond Street, Oxford Circus and Holborn to Bank, and the Elizabeth line from Paddington runs on through Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road to Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf, so a morning in the City or among the towers begins without a change of train. For meetings outside London altogether, the main line from Paddington runs west to Reading, Oxford and Bristol, and the same station has the direct trains to Heathrow for the flight home.
The nearest offices of any size are just to the north east, at Paddington Central, the office quarter around Sheldon Square beside the canal, where a working population now fills the streets west of the station by day. Diplomatic visitors have their own reason to stay: Kensington Palace Gardens, the gated private road of embassies and ambassadors' residences, runs south from the Bayswater Road near Notting Hill Gate, just beyond the district's western edge.
For conferences, the big hotels along the park edge between Lancaster Gate and Queensway keep conference and banqueting rooms of their own, and Porchester Hall on Porchester Road, a civic hall of the 1920s, takes functions and dinners. A delegate here can finish the last session a few streets from where he sleeps.
Note 03
The evening after a long day
The first hour after work is the one to plan around. Some guests want to walk it off before anything else: the park is across the Bayswater Road, and a loop under the trees clears a head faster than a drink does. Others want the opposite: a quiet room, a bath, and no more decisions until the evening has properly begun.
Then comes the choice between going out and staying in. Queensway, named after Queen Victoria, stays lively late and has tables of every kind; the squares behind it are silent by comparison. A dinner with company after a day of meetings is a different evening from one alone with the laptop, and the office can shape either: say what the day has been and what you want from the rest of it, and the office suggests who suits it.
Note 04
When work sets the clock
Working visitors rarely know in the morning when the day will end, and nothing here needs them to. Book the length you want and a rough hour; moving the start is routine, and one message fixes it once the last meeting breaks up.
If the evening includes a client dinner or a function, tell the office what kind it is, and she arrives dressed for it. Count on an hour or so from the office's confirmation to her arrival, more while the evening rush lasts; the chat carries her own time as she leaves, and the rates carry every length. Next door in Paddington, still within W2, live three names on the board, Laura and Nora among them.
A week of meetings often means more than one free evening, and each can be booked on its own terms: every evening is confirmed separately in writing, so it is always clear which hours are held and with whom. Seeing the same companion twice in one stay is common, and she will remember what you told her about the deal, the delegation or the client the first time, which saves telling the story again at the end of another long day.
Note 05
Around W2
East along the park, Lancaster Gate opens into Kensington Gardens. North, Paddington holds the station and the offices by the canal. Along its own high street, Queensway keeps the district's liveliest evenings, and west, past the embassy road, lies Notting Hill.
Between them, Bayswater is the quiet middle: a place to sleep well, work elsewhere and come back to. After a day spent on other people's agendas, that quiet is worth more than it sounds, and a square of dark trees outside the window is a better end to it than another lit street.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Bayswater
Asked most often
Bayswater, asked and answered
Is Bayswater a sensible base for meetings in the City?
Can she join me at a client dinner?
My last meeting has no fixed end. Can the evening wait for it?
Is the embassy road near Bayswater?
Where can I clear my head between the last meeting and dinner?
One zone either way
Next along from Bayswater
Last strip
Say a name and an hour
Write in with a length, a time and the zone you are staying in, and a name from the board comes back with a window attached. That is the whole of the arrangement.