Escorts in Queensway, W2: who is close, and how soon
"People book Queensway for the evening and remember it for the morning," says Sylvie, who answers the office's messages. She means the hour after eight, when the shutters roll up along the street, the first trays appear in the bakery windows and Black Lion Gate at the bottom of the road has already been open onto Kensington Gardens for two hours. For Queensway escorts and the guests who book them, a night that runs on to breakfast finishes well here. Nobody on the board lives on the street itself; the nearest three names are in Paddington, to the east, and she is normally with you around an hour after the office confirms, later in the evening rush, with each length and its figure on the rates.
On the ground
Queensway in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameW2 4RJ, W2 2TY, W2 4DU, W8 4PT.
Nearest stations
Walking timeQueensway, 1 minute. Bayswater, 3 minutes. Lancaster Gate, 8 minutes.
Getting there
W2Travel 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 Queensway
Who works here
On the board in Queensway
The eight prints above are a first shortlist for Queensway tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
A street named for a young rider
Queensway was Black Lion Lane until it was renamed for Queen Victoria, who was born at Kensington Palace in 1819 and is said to have ridden along it as a girl. The street shows its shape best early in the day, when the traffic is thin and the whole line of it is clear, from the Bayswater Road up to the long front of the old Whiteleys store at the north end, where William Whiteley's department store moved in 1911.
Later in the morning it fills with shoppers and the roasting smell from the Cantonese windows. Before that it belongs to people walking to the Central line, cafés setting out their chairs, and anyone who spent the night close by and has nowhere urgent to be.
Note 03
Breakfast along the street
Queensway itself is the easy answer. Its cafés and bakeries cover a good deal of the world between them: eggs and strong coffee, Middle Eastern breads baked with cheese or za'atar, sweet pastries, juice pressed while you wait. The Cantonese dining rooms that give the street its evening name also serve dim sum, which by tradition is a late-morning meal, so a slow breakfast can become an early lunch without changing tables.
Order for the table rather than for yourself: small plates shared across a cloth make an easier morning than two separate breakfasts, and they leave room for the conversation that did not happen the night before. Tea is the natural drink with dim sum, and it suits a slow start better than a third coffee.
Note 04
Black Lion Gate at six
Kensington Gardens opens at six in the morning, and Black Lion Gate, at the foot of Queensway, is one of the first ways in. From it the Broad Walk runs south in a dead straight line, as wide as its name, with Kensington Palace on the right and open grass to the left.
It is the plainest walk in this part of London and the best cure for a short night: flat, straight and easy to cut short by simply turning round. At that hour the company is dog walkers, a few runners and the green parakeets that have made the gardens' trees their own, loud enough to wake anyone who is still half asleep.
Note 05
The palace, the pond and the sunken garden
Opposite the palace the Round Pond spreads across the grass, with swans and geese working its edges, and in front of the palace the statue of Queen Victoria, carved by her daughter Princess Louise, looks out towards it. It is the view the young princess grew up with, and in the early light it has hardly changed.
Beside the palace lies the Sunken Garden, laid out in 1908 and ringed by a walk of pleached limes whose openings frame the beds and the water below. Look through, loop back past the east side of the pond and north again to the Bayswater Road, and you are back on Queensway in time for a second coffee.
Note 06
A departure nobody notices
The end of the morning needs no plan. Her fee was handed to her in person when she arrived, so there is nothing to settle; she leaves the way she came in, as your guest, and a street as busy as Queensway at nine absorbs anyone stepping out of a door. For escorts in Queensway the morning is simply the quiet end of the evening.
If breakfast together would round it off, ask the office before the booked hours run out rather than after. When she is free to stay on, the longer time is confirmed in writing, exactly as the evening was, and the extra is handed to her there and then.
Note 07
Onward from the foot of the street
Queensway station, on the Central line, stands at the bottom of the street and Bayswater, on the Circle and District lines, is a short walk up it, so a guest heading for the City or the West End need not look for a cab at all.
For the day that follows, Notting Hill is a walk west and up the hill, Lancaster Gate lies east along the park railings, and Kensington is straight down the Broad Walk and out through the far side of the gardens. The who is free page shows who is on the board this week if one morning turns into a second evening.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Queensway
Asked most often
Queensway, asked and answered
Is Kensington Gardens open early enough for a walk before breakfast?
What sort of breakfast is Queensway good for?
Can breakfast be added when the booking ends in the morning?
How does she leave without anyone taking notice?
Where is the palace from the bottom of the street?
Is there a quiet way back that avoids the shops?
One zone either way
Next along from Queensway
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.