Escorts in Maida Vale, W9: who is close, and how soon
Is Maida Vale somewhere for a summer evening only, or does it hold up in January? It holds up, but it changes with the calendar more than most of London, because so much of it is trees, water and long residential avenues rather than shopfronts. For Maida Vale escorts and the guests who book them, the month decides whether the evening is a towpath and a table outside or a lit window and a warm room. No name on the board lives in W9; the nearest three live next door in Paddington, and she is generally with you around an hour after the office confirms, longer in the rush, with the lengths and their figures on the rates.
On the ground
Maida Vale in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameW9 1ER, W2 1JU, W2 6BD.
Nearest stations
Walking timeMaida Vale, 1 minute. Warwick Avenue, 4 minutes. Paddington, 15 minutes.
Getting there
W9Travel 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 Maida Vale
Who works here
On the board in Maida Vale
The six prints above are a first shortlist for Maida Vale tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
Spring on the avenues
The wide avenues are the district's signature: Elgin Avenue, Randolph Avenue and Sutherland Avenue, lined with long red-brick mansion blocks and rows of plane trees. The planes come into leaf late and almost all at once, and until they do the blossom in the front gardens, and in the big communal gardens hidden behind the blocks, does the work, showing over walls that keep most of that green out of sight.
On the canal, spring is nesting time. Coots and moorhens build at the water's edge and in the lee of the moored boats, and by late spring the chicks are out in small processions behind their parents. The evenings stretch past the start of dinner, still cool enough to want a coat.
Note 03
Summer at Little Venice
Summer belongs to the water. Little Venice is the wide pool where the Regent's Canal meets the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union, with narrowboats moored round its edges and a small wooded island in the middle. On a warm evening the bridges and the banks fill with people doing nothing in particular, which is exactly the point of the place.
From the pool the towpath runs east along the Regent's Canal under the trees, past the villas of Blomfield Road, until the Maida Hill tunnel takes the water underground and walkers climb up to the street to cross over the top. Inland, Paddington Recreation Ground keeps the running track where Roger Bannister trained as a medical student, and on a long summer evening its track and courts are busy with people making the most of the light.
Note 04
Autumn: leaves on the water
Autumn may be the avenues' finest season. The planes let go of broad brown leaves that bank up along the kerbs of Randolph and Sutherland Avenues, the brick of the mansion blocks turns a deeper red in the low sun, and the canal gathers a skin of leaves that the boats part as they pass.
The evenings close in quickly once the clocks go back, and the shape of a visit changes with them. The walk becomes a short one, from Warwick Avenue down to the pool and back under the street lamps, and the evening moves indoors sooner; for escorts in Maida Vale and their guests the lamplit avenues become the view from the window rather than the route.
Note 05
Winter: smoke from the boats
In winter Little Venice looks its most lived in. Many of the narrowboats along the canal are homes, heated by solid-fuel stoves, and on a cold evening thin smoke drifts from their chimneys while lamps glow in the portholes. The water lies still, the towpath is almost empty, and in a hard frost the edges of the canal can skin over with ice.
Up on the avenues the mansion blocks come into their own: rows of lit windows behind bare branches, entrance halls glowing at street level, the whole district looking like a place where people choose to stay in. It is the season for a warm room and a long conversation rather than a walk.
Note 06
What the seasons leave alone
Some things here do not change with the month. The name comes from a battle: the Hero of Maida inn on the Edgware Road was named after the British victory at Maida, in southern Italy, in 1806, and the district took its name from the inn. North of the canal the Edgware Road itself carries the name, running on as the road called Maida Vale.
The Bakerloo line runs beneath all year, with Maida Vale and Warwick Avenue stations close by, and Maida Vale station has its own small place in the record: when it opened in 1915 it was staffed entirely by women. Nobody on the board lives in W9 in any season, so every visit starts from somewhere else.
Note 07
Planning by the month
The practical upshot is simple. From late spring to early autumn an evening here can open outdoors, on the towpath or at the pool, and it wants a length that leaves room for the walk; from November to February, plan a shorter walk or none, and more time indoors. Either way, say in your first message what kind of evening you have in mind, and the office will suit the name to it from who is free.
Neighbouring ground reads the same water differently: Paddington has the basin end of the canal, and Edgware Road is the long dining street that climbs to the district's eastern edge.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Maida Vale
Asked most often
Maida Vale, asked and answered
When is the canal at its best?
Is the towpath pleasant in winter?
What does Maida Vale look like in autumn?
Are the boats at Little Venice lived on all year?
Which month suits a first evening here?
One zone either way
Next along from Maida Vale
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.