Escorts in Finsbury Park, N4: who is close, and how soon
Jimi Hendrix first set fire to a guitar on stage at the Astoria on Seven Sisters Road, in Finsbury Park, in March 1967. The building had opened as a cinema in 1930 and went on to its loudest years as the Rainbow Theatre; it is a church now, but it is the reason N4 turns up in so many histories of popular music, and it is a fair guide to the district's culture, which has always been more stage door than gallery.
N4 is not home to anyone on the board, so Finsbury Park escorts set out from the middle of town, and about an hour from the office's go-ahead is the figure to plan on, more when the roads are slow; the rates page lists what each length costs.
On the ground
Finsbury Park in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameN1 0UY, N1C 4TB, WC1H 8EG.
Nearest stations
Walking timeFinsbury Park, 2 minutes. Manor House, 10 minutes. Arsenal, 10 minutes. Harringay Green Lanes, 12 minutes.
Getting there
N4Travel 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 Finsbury Park
Who works here
On the board in Finsbury Park
The six prints above are a first shortlist for Finsbury Park tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
The Rainbow years
As the Astoria, the hall was one of the grand atmospheric cinemas of its day, its auditorium dressed as a Spanish village under a painted night sky. As the Rainbow, from the early 1970s, it took the biggest names in rock and reggae. Eric Clapton's comeback concert of 1973 was recorded there, and in 1977 Bob Marley and the Wailers played the run of shows that became the film Live at the Rainbow.
The concerts ended a few years later and the building has belonged to a church since the 1990s. It is listed, and its front on the corner of Isledon Road is still the thing to look up at on the way from the station.
Note 03
A working stage on Clifton Terrace
The district's live theatre is Park Theatre, which opened in 2013 in a converted office block on Clifton Terrace, with a larger and a smaller auditorium under one roof. It mixes new plays with revivals, and more than one of its productions has gone on to the West End, which gives a night here the pleasure of seeing something before the rest of London does. A play is also the easiest kind of evening to plan: a fixed curtain, an interval, and the rest of the night left open. For another well-known stage, the Almeida is a stop south on the Victoria line, in Islington.
Note 04
Concerts on the grass, and a story up the line
Finsbury Park itself was laid out in the 1860s, one of the first large public parks of Victorian London, and in summer its open ground takes the big open-air concerts. On a show night the streets round the station fill before the gates open and again after the encore, so an evening with other plans is better set on another date.
From the park, the Parkland Walk follows an old railway line towards Highgate, past platforms that lost their trains long ago. Stephen King set one of his short stories, Crouch End, in the district the walk runs past. Escorts in Finsbury Park come dressed for a curtain or for a quiet night in; say which in the message.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Finsbury Park
Asked most often
Finsbury Park, asked and answered
What became of the Rainbow Theatre?
What sort of plays does Park Theatre put on?
Which Stephen King story is set near here?
Is a concert night in the park a good night to be in N4?
One zone either way
Next along from Finsbury Park
Highgate
N6Same ladder, but outside Zones 1 and 2: the office confirms the travel and any minimum in writing on WhatsApp before booking.
Muswell Hill hotels
N10Same ladder, but outside Zones 1 and 2: the office confirms the travel and any minimum in writing on WhatsApp before booking.
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.