Escorts in Carnaby, W1F: who is close, and how soon
"Send me the flat number and whatever is written on the bell," says Sylvie, who runs the office, "because in W1F the door is often squeezed in between two shops." She has the streets round Carnaby exactly right. Most buildings here are shops or restaurants at pavement level with flats and offices on the floors above, reached by a plain street door and a narrow stair, so for Carnaby escorts a private address is as ordinary as a hotel room. Three names on the board give Soho as home, which puts them close by.
On the ground
Carnaby in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameW1F 7HL, W1F 8HT, W1B 4DY, W1D 3DH, W1D 7DT.
Nearest stations
Walking timeOxford Circus, 3 minutes. Piccadilly Circus, 6 minutes. Tottenham Court Road, 8 minutes.
Getting there
W1FTravel 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 Carnaby
Who works here
On the board in Carnaby
The eight prints above are a first shortlist for Carnaby tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
A street door between two shopfronts
The building type repeats across the district. At street level there is a shop window, a café or a restaurant; beside it, a door with no sign, a panel of bells and sometimes a letterbox for each floor. Behind that door a narrow stair climbs to the flats, one or two to a landing, and on the upper storeys the noise of the shopping street drops away faster than a visitor expects.
Carnaby Street itself, Newburgh Street and Ganton Street all work this way, and so do most of the smaller streets between them. Plenty of the buildings were rebuilt or refitted in the last century, but the scale is still that of the older houses: narrow frontages, three or four floors, sash windows that open over the street.
Note 03
The streets where people live
The residential heart of W1F lies on its eastern side, around Broadwick Street, Marshall Street, Lexington Street and Poland Street. Here the flats are not only above shops: housing association and council flats sit alongside private ones, and Soho has a residential community of its own that has kept it a place people call home as well as somewhere they come to spend an evening.
People have lived crowded into these streets for centuries. William Blake was born on Broad Street, the old name for Broadwick Street, in 1757, and it was in the same street, during the cholera outbreak of 1854, that John Snow traced the disease to a single water pump; a replica of it stands on Broadwick Street today. The houses have changed since, but the habit of living above the shop has not.
Note 04
Golden Square, the quiet corner
South of Beak Street, Golden Square is one of the older squares in the West End, laid out in the late seventeenth century, with a statue of George II standing in its garden. Its houses were built as homes, but nearly all of them are offices now, which is why the square goes so still once the working day is over.
For anyone staying in a flat on one of the streets that run into it, the square is the calm end of the district: benches, a few trees round the statue and very little traffic after dark. It makes a fair contrast with the streets just north of it, where the shops keep people passing until closing time.
Note 05
When the shopping day is over
The change comes at closing time. As the shops on Carnaby Street pull their shutters down, the crowds drain away towards Regent Street and the Underground, and the streets behind go back to the people who live in them. Lights come on in the upper windows, restaurants and bars take over the pavement level for the evening, and the stairwells behind the unmarked doors are, once more, simply the way home.
That makes the evening the natural time for a visit to a private address here. Carnaby Street and several streets beside it are closed to traffic, so there is no car at the kerb and no doorman in the way, only the bell and the stair. A flat rented for a week above a shop is arranged in exactly the same way as one lived in all year.
Note 06
What the office asks for a flat
Three things make a private address work in W1F: the street and number, the flat number, and the name or number on the bell. If the bells are unlabelled, say which one it is, counting from the top or the bottom of the panel. If you would rather meet her in the street than have her ring, say that instead.
Nothing is sent ahead to anyone in the building, and she climbs the stair as your guest like any other visitor. Her arrival is generally about an hour on from the office's confirmation, longer in the evening rush around Oxford Circus, and every length is listed on the rates.
Note 07
Next door to W1F
Regent Street is the western edge, a long curve of shops and offices with Mayfair beyond it. North, across Great Marlborough Street, the district runs up to Oxford Street and Oxford Circus, where the residential streets give out. South, through the streets below Golden Square, the way leads down to Piccadilly Circus; east, past Berwick Street and its market, the rest of Soho carries on in the same pattern of flats above shops, only noisier.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Carnaby
Asked most often
Carnaby, asked and answered
Is a flat above a shop handled like a hotel room?
The street door has a panel of unlabelled bells. What then?
Do people really live on these streets?
Is Golden Square residential?
Is Carnaby Street itself too busy for a private address?
Does a flat rented for the week work the same way as my own?
One zone either way
Next along from Carnaby
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.