Escorts in Holborn, WC1V and WC2A: who is close, and how soon
Holborn Viaduct was opened in 1869 so that traffic bound for the City no longer had to drop into the valley of the Fleet and climb out again, and it keeps the long walk east along Holborn level from end to end. West of it, between Chancery Lane and Kingsway, the Inns of Court, the old legal streets, Lincoln's Inn Fields and a string of smaller squares sit within a few turnings of each other, and most of them have gone quiet by the time an evening begins. For escorts in Holborn, a walk is the easiest way to start a night.
None of the women on the board has a home in WC1V or WC2A, so the office looks first at the three who live in Covent Garden, across Kingsway to the south-west. Four walks follow, all on public streets and none of them timed: the pace is yours.
On the ground
Holborn in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameWC1V 7EN, WC1V 7BD, WC1B 5BE, WC2B 4DD, WC2B 4BZ.
Nearest stations
Walking timeHolborn, 1 minute. Chancery Lane, 5 minutes. Covent Garden, 7 minutes.
Getting there
WC1V, WC2ATravel 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 Holborn
Who works here
On the board in Holborn
The six prints above are a first shortlist for Holborn tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
Round Lincoln's Inn Fields
Begin on the Kingsway side and go round the Fields clockwise. The north side is a terrace of tall brick houses, three of which make up Sir John Soane's Museum, the architect's own home left almost exactly as he arranged it and crammed with casts, paintings and antiquities. The garden in the middle is lawns and old plane trees, crossed by paths.
The east side belongs to Lincoln's Inn, one of the four Inns of Court, its Victorian hall and library in red brick with stone trim, seen across the railings. The south side is taken up by the Royal College of Surgeons, a broad classical front with a portico of columns, and the streets behind it lead to the buildings of the London School of Economics. Back at Kingsway, the circuit is complete.
Note 03
East along High Holborn
From the station, walk east along High Holborn. On the south side, by Chancery Lane station, stands the front of Staple Inn, a row of sixteenth-century timber-framed houses with jettied upper floors, one of very few such fronts left in central London. Close by, on the north side, a gateway leads into Gray's Inn, another of the Inns of Court.
Carry on east and the road reaches Holborn Circus, where a statue of Prince Albert on horseback stands in the middle of the junction. Hatton Garden, the jewellery quarter, runs north from here, its windows full of rings and stones until the shutters come down, and beyond the Circus the road carries on over the Viaduct, with its iron parapets and statues, towards the City of London.
Note 04
Great Queen Street to Covent Garden
For a walk that ends at dinner, go south down Kingsway and turn right into Great Queen Street. The street is dominated by Freemasons' Hall, the great Art Deco headquarters of English Freemasonry, its stone tower rising over the pavement, and it is a surprise to find a building of that size tucked into so ordinary a street.
At the end of Great Queen Street, cross Drury Lane and carry straight on into Long Acre, and the streets of Covent Garden open up around you, with the Piazza a few turnings south and the theatres and restaurants all round. It is the most direct way from the legal quiet of Holborn to the lights of the West End, and the change between the two is half the pleasure.
Note 05
North to the small squares
North of High Holborn the streets are smaller and older. Red Lion Square is a modest garden square, and Conway Hall stands on it, the home of a long-established ethical society and a well-known venue for talks and concerts. A little to the east, Bedford Row is one of the finest runs of early Georgian terraces in London, wide, straight and lined with brick houses, most of them lawyers' offices now.
From the top of Bedford Row, Theobalds Road leads west, and the streets beyond it bring you into Bloomsbury and its larger squares. This is the walk to keep for after dinner rather than before: the offices are dark, the terraces are lit only by their street lamps, and the loudest thing on the pavement is often your own footsteps.
Note 06
Choosing the walk for the evening
The four walks suit different parts of a night. The circuit of the Fields is the one for before dinner, while a summer evening still has some light in it; Great Queen Street is the one that ends at a table; High Holborn is for anyone curious about the edge of the City; and the squares to the north are best left for later, once the district has emptied. The Inns themselves are private, with their own gates and their own rules, so every route here keeps to public streets.
The hotels in the panel above stand on High Holborn and round the Aldwych, so any of the walks can begin close to the room. Once the office confirms, reckon on about an hour before she joins you, more in the evening rush along Kingsway, and look at the rates for the lengths that leave room for a walk.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Holborn
Asked most often
Holborn, asked and answered
Which walk suits the time before dinner?
Can we walk to the river from Holborn?
Are the Inns of Court open to walk through?
What is inside Sir John Soane's Museum?
What is the building with the tower on Great Queen Street?
Is Hatton Garden worth a detour in the evening?
One zone either way
Next along from Holborn
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.