Escorts in Hackney, E8, E9 and E5: who is close, and how soon
Half past seven on a dark November evening is the hour Hackney shows its real shape. The shutters come down along Mare Street, and behind it, across E8, E9 and up into E5, lights go on in front rooms and basement kitchens, terrace after terrace, because this is a borough people live in rather than stay in. A page about escorts in Hackney is really a page about front doors.
The whole board lives west of here, so a Hackney evening begins with her crossing London: count on about an hour of travel once your booking is fixed, more while the roads are jammed, with her own timing posted to you as she sets out; lengths and figures live on the rates.
On the ground
Hackney in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameE2 9NF, EC2A 3HU, EC2A 4BH.
Nearest stations
Walking timeHackney Central, 2 minutes. Hackney Downs, 6 minutes. London Fields, 9 minutes.
Getting there
E8, E9, E5Travel 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 Hackney
Who works here
On the board in Hackney
The six prints above are a first shortlist for Hackney tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
One front door, three bells
Much of Hackney is Victorian terrace, two or three storeys high, put up as the railways pushed out from the City in the second half of the nineteenth century. Many of those houses have long since been divided. A single front door now opens on a shared hall and stair, with a column of bells beside it, a basement flat down its own area steps and a top flat tucked under the roof.
On a street where every door looks alike, the bell is the real address. Give the office your flat number and the name printed beside your buzzer, not the house number alone, and mention a basement flat out loud, since she then goes down the steps instead of ringing upstairs.
Note 03
Georgian squares and a Tudor house
Hackney is older than its terraces. Clapton Square in E5 keeps its early nineteenth century houses round a railed garden, with fanlights and front steps rather than entry panels. In Homerton, Sutton House was built in 1535 for Ralph Sadleir, a courtier of Henry VIII, and is now kept by the National Trust as the oldest house in the borough.
Note 04
Estates, towers and the new blocks
Hackney also holds a great deal of post-war council housing, from deck access estates to tower blocks, and a newer layer of flats round the stations and along the Regent's Canal, where warehouses and yards have been rebuilt as homes. These buildings share one habit: a locked street door with an entry panel, and often a lift that wants a fob.
If yours works like that, say so when you book. You can come down and open the street door yourself at the time the office gives you, or pass on the number to dial, and either way nobody stands long at the entrance.
Note 05
The streets either side
West along the Overground, much of Dalston lives above the shops of one long road. South, London Fields is terraces round its park, and beyond the canal Bethnal Green mixes cottages, old estates and warehouse conversions. Hackney escorts visit all of them the same way: a named bell, a flat number, and a door you open yourself.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Hackney
Asked most often
Hackney, asked and answered
My flat is one of three behind a shared front door. What should I send?
Is a basement flat with its own steps any different?
My block has a locked entrance and a fob for the lift. Does that complicate things?
I would rather she did not ring my bell at all. Can we meet in the street?
One zone either way
Next along from Hackney
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.