Escorts in Bond Street, W1S: who is close, and how soon
Is there a walk round Bond Street that amounts to more than a long look into shop windows? There is, once the street is treated as a spine rather than a destination: in at one end, off it through the side streets where a church portico, a royal birthplace and a famous lecture theatre wait, and back by quieter pavements to wherever dinner is booked. The routes below follow real streets in the order a guest and his companion might take them, with no clock attached, because the pace is theirs to set. Of the names on the board, three have homes in Mayfair and two across Oxford Street in Marylebone, and for Bond Street escorts the timing matches the rest of central London: an hour or so from the moment the office confirms, more when the traffic is at its worst, the precise time arriving by chat, and the lengths themselves set out on the rates.
On the ground
Bond Street in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameW1S 2YF, W1K 4HR, W1S 4BP, W1K 6TF, W1B 4DY.
Nearest stations
Walking timeBond Street, 2 minutes. Oxford Circus, 5 minutes. Green Park, 7 minutes.
Getting there
W1STravel 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 Bond Street
Who works here
On the board in Bond Street
The eight prints above are a first shortlist for Bond Street tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
Choosing the door you start from
Bond Street station has more than one way up to daylight, and the choice sets the walk. The Oxford Street exits put you at the head of the street itself. The Elizabeth line's two ticket halls surface further off: one on Davies Street to the west, one on Hanover Square to the east. Bond Street station is two minutes on foot from the street, Oxford Circus five and Green Park seven, and any of them will do for a walk with nowhere in particular to be.
Hanover Square makes the gentlest beginning. Its garden sits in the middle of the traffic, and from the square's southern side St George Street runs down past the columned portico of St George's, Hanover Square, the parish church Handel attended while he lived a few streets away, and for three centuries a favourite with fashionable London for its weddings. The street carries on south towards the main shopping stretch, and from there the walk can turn west into the heart of Mayfair.
The northern end has a continuation of its own. Almost opposite the station, the narrow passage of Gees Court leaves Oxford Street and opens into St Christopher's Place, a small pedestrian quarter of lanes on the Marylebone side, which suits the first half hour of an evening that has not yet decided where it is going.
Note 03
The long straight, taken slowly
The street runs in one line from Oxford Street down to Piccadilly and changes its name about halfway: the long northern run carries the prefix 'New' and the shorter southern end 'Old', because the southern end came first. It takes its name from Sir Thomas Bond, whose syndicate began building there in the 1680s; the northern extension followed in the eighteenth century.
Walked slowly, the street is less about its windows than its turnings. Grosvenor Street and Bruton Street leave it to the west, towards two of Mayfair's great squares; Clifford Street and Burlington Gardens leave it to the east, towards the galleries of Cork Street. Each is a short excursion that comes back to the main street, and once the shops have closed it is the side streets that carry the evening's quiet. There is no need to walk the whole length twice: go down one way and come back by the parallel streets.
Note 04
West by Bruton Street to Berkeley Square
The best single turning is Bruton Street. It leaves the main street heading west, and along it, at number 17, Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926; the house itself has gone, but a plaque on the building that replaced it marks the spot. Bruton Street then opens onto Berkeley Square, where the walk can cross the garden under the old plane trees rather than go round it.
From the square, Davies Street runs north towards Oxford Street and passes the Elizabeth line's western ticket hall on the way, which closes the loop neatly for a guest who arrived by train. For a longer evening, leave Davies Street partway up and turn west along Grosvenor Street to Grosvenor Square, a larger garden and a good place to finish before a table in the streets around it.
Note 05
A southern loop under cover and past the Royal Institution
At the southern end, Burlington Gardens turns east off the street, and from it the Burlington Arcade runs south under its long roof to Piccadilly: a covered walk between small shopfronts that suits a damp evening for as long as its gates are open. Out on Piccadilly, turn west past the foot of the street and then north up Albemarle Street.
On the way up stands the Royal Institution, its columned front hiding the lecture theatre where Michael Faraday spoke. Its lectures once drew so many carriages that Albemarle Street was made London's first one-way street. At the top, Grafton Street leads back to the main street, while Dover Street, one street further west, offers a parallel way down to Piccadilly. Together they make a loop that never repeats a pavement and ends back on the main street, a few doors from where the evening might begin.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Bond Street
Asked most often
Bond Street, asked and answered
Which station exit makes the best start for a walk?
Is there anything under cover if the walk meets rain?
Where was Queen Elizabeth II born?
What made Albemarle Street London's first one-way road?
How can the walk finish close to Grosvenor Square?
One zone either way
Next along from Bond Street
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.