Escorts in Sloane Street, SW1X: who is close, and how soon
"Ask me what can be seen from Sloane Street and I will tell you: more sky than you expect, and a great many trees," says Sylvie, who answers the office's messages. The street runs north to south between Knightsbridge and Sloane Square under a line of plane trees, with the railings of a long private garden along part of its eastern side, and it is one of the few streets in this corner of London where you can look a good way along it in either direction. An evening with Sloane Street escorts starts in a room or a flat somewhere on that line, and the street rewards anyone who looks up from the shop windows: open parkland at one end, a great church window in the middle, and a square with the river beyond it at the other.
On the ground
Sloane Street in practice
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by nameSW1X 9PY, SW1X 9SG, SW3 2RP, SW3 2RJ, SW1X 7RL.
Nearest stations
Walking timeKnightsbridge, 2 minutes. Sloane Square, 6 minutes. Hyde Park Corner, 10 minutes.
Getting there
SW1XTravel 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 Sloane Street
Who works here
On the board in Sloane Street
The eight prints above are a first shortlist for Sloane Street tonight. Any of the twenty eight on the who is free page can be asked for by name instead.
Note 02
The park end, and the long view down the Row
At the top, Sloane Street meets Knightsbridge beside the station, and the city closes in: tall frontages, buses and a crossing that never quite empties. The open ground is just east along Knightsbridge, where Albert Gate leads into Hyde Park. Before crossing, turn round: the whole length of Sloane Street runs away south under its plane trees, the one view of the street itself worth stopping for. Then step through the gate and the noise falls away behind you.
Inside the gate runs Rotten Row, the sand riding track along the south side of the park, and it gives the longest view anywhere near SW1X: a straight line of sand and trees heading west, with grass opening out to the right. Walk it in the early evening and the light goes down ahead of you. It is the nearest open ground to the street, and on a clear night the best place to see how big the sky over London can be.
Note 03
Halfway down: a garden behind railings, and red gables
Walking south, the eastern side of the street opens behind railings onto the gardens of Cadogan Place, a long strip of lawn and old trees kept for the residents around them. Nobody can walk in without a key, but the garden gives the street something few shopping streets have: a view across green from the pavement, and from the windows above it, treetops instead of the building opposite.
Where Pont Street crosses, look west. The view there is of tall red brick houses with stepped and curved gables, built in the 1870s and 1880s and so particular to this part of London that the style was nicknamed Pont Street Dutch. After the white stucco of Belgravia a few streets east, it is like turning a page into another city.
Note 04
Holy Trinity and its window
Near the Sloane Square end is Holy Trinity, rebuilt between 1888 and 1890 to the designs of John Dando Sedding, with a tall front of red brick and stone that is easy to walk past between the shops. The reason to go in is the great east window: Edward Burne-Jones drew it and Morris and Co made it, and it is the largest window the firm ever produced.
Its forty eight panels fill the east end in deep blues, reds and greens, and the church is built to lead the eye straight to them. The rest of the interior is filled with metalwork, carving and glass by the leading craftsmen of the 1890s, so the view keeps going as you walk back towards the door. Of everything to look at on Sloane Street, it is the one view that is indoors.
Note 05
The square at the bottom, and the river beyond it
Sloane Street ends in Sloane Square, a paved square under plane trees with a fountain at its centre: Gilbert Ledward's Venus, kneeling above a bowl carved with Charles II and Nell Gwynne beside the Thames, put up in 1953. On the west side the long glass front of Peter Jones follows the corner into the King's Road; built in the 1930s, it was among the first glass curtain walls in Britain. The Royal Court Theatre faces it from the east side.
The river cannot be seen from the square, but it is close. Lower Sloane Street and Chelsea Bridge Road lead south to the Chelsea Embankment, where the view opens across the Thames to the trees of Battersea Park, and further upstream Albert Bridge is picked out after dark by thousands of small bulbs along its cables and towers.
North of the street lies Knightsbridge and the park; east, behind the garden, Belgravia; south, Sloane Square and the King's Road into Chelsea. Sylvie's reply names who is coming; expect her around an hour after it confirms, later at rush hour, with each length and its figure set out on the rates.
From The Roundup
Two notes worth reading for Sloane Street
Asked most often
Sloane Street, asked and answered
Can Hyde Park be seen from Sloane Street?
What is the garden behind the railings on the east side?
Is the window at Holy Trinity worth going in for?
What is the fountain in the middle of Sloane Square?
Where is the nearest view of the river?
Which end of the street has the better view?
One zone either way
Next along from Sloane Street
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.