Outcall only, by appointment
The Square Mile after 18:30: EC2, EC3 and EC4 at their quietest
Roughly half a million people work inside one square mile and nine in ten of them leave between 17:45 and 19:00. What remains is a district of lit towers, empty lanes and about ten thousand residents, and it is the most pleasant version of the City there is.
This page covers the stations and their minutes, the hotels across the three postcodes, what the after hours City books, the companions who work it, and how far the boundaries reach.
Doors she arrives at
- EC2R 8AJCity of London
- EC2M 7QNLiverpool Street
- EC3A 7ABCity of London
- EC3N 4AJTower Hill
- EC2A 1DXFinsbury Square
Nearest stations
- Bank1 min walkCentral, Northern, Waterloo and City, DLR
- St Paul's5 min walkCentral
- Liverpool Street7 min walkCentral, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan, Elizabeth line, National Rail
Nearest to City of London
One of them works from City of London itself, and the other 5 are a district or two away on the same arrival window. Any of the 28 in the desk can be asked for by name instead.
Three postcodes, three stations
Bank, with the Central, Northern and Waterloo and City lines plus the DLR, is one minute from Threadneedle Street and the centre of EC2 and EC3. St Paul's on the Central line is five minutes from the cathedral and the EC4 streets behind it. Liverpool Street, seven minutes north, adds the Elizabeth line, the Circle, the Hammersmith and City and the Metropolitan, along with the main line platforms.
From the Wharf, Bank is eighteen minutes on the DLR and about twenty by road through the Limehouse Link after eight. From the West End, fifteen minutes on the Central line. Plan on forty five minutes to an hour from a confirmed booking, which is the figure we quote everywhere and the one we actually meet.
Where the City sleeps
The address at EC2R 8AJ is the busiest of them, a grand old banking room turned hotel two minutes from Bank station. The one at EC2M 7QN sits over Liverpool Street station at the northern edge. A tower at EC3A 7AB rises beside Bishopsgate with rooms high enough to take in the whole district at once.
The grand one at EC3N 4AJ holds the eastern corner near the Tower, and EC2A 1DX faces Finsbury Square just past the boundary. Five addresses, none of them connected to this desk in any way. The residential blocks around the Barbican and on Cheapside are booked the same way.
What the City books after hours
Two things, mainly. Short evenings with an early morning behind them: one hour at £250 or ninety minutes at £400, ordered from a room and finished before eleven. And entertaining, where four hours at £900 as a dinner date covers a Leadenhall or Bishopsgate table and whatever comes after it.
Weekends are the City's other life. From Friday evening until Monday the streets are close to silent, the hotels stay full of people who came for something else, and a Saturday booking here has a quality a Tuesday one does not. The ladder does not change for either.
The third pattern, smaller but steady, is residents. About ten thousand people live inside the boundary, most of them around the Barbican and along Cheapside, and they book the way islanders do: short notice, short journey, no interest whatever in a restaurant.
Companions across EC
Bianka and Tiffany are anchored in the City and know which lanes are shortcuts and which are gates that lock at seven. Liana and Margo work Bank and Monument at the centre of it. Danielle comes up from London Bridge in nine minutes on foot.
Six to eight appear on this page and all twenty eight are on the desk. Say whether the evening is private or has other people in it, because it genuinely changes who Maude puts forward.
Out to the boundaries
Bank and Monument is the core of this district and has its own page for the streets immediately around the junction. London Bridge is nine minutes south over the river. Liverpool Street holds the northern edge, Aldgate the eastern, and Holborn is a twelve minute walk west along Cheapside and Newgate Street.
Canary Wharf is eighteen minutes east on the DLR and Wapping nine minutes by road along The Highway. All of it is Zone 1: travel is inside the fee and nothing is added at the door. Figures are on rates and the sequence on booking.
Two pages worth reading for City of London
Asked about City of London
Do the City hotels mind evening visitors?
They see them every night of the week and take no interest at all. She arrives dressed for the building, asks for you by the name on your reservation and goes up. Give us that name when you confirm and the whole thing takes eleven seconds at the desk.
Is a Saturday booking in the City a bad idea?
It is one of the better ones. The district is quiet, the hotel restaurants are half full and nothing takes as long as it does midweek. The only cost is that most of the lunch places are shut, so plan the food around the hotel or cross the river.
My office has a flat above it. Can she come there?
Yes. A residential address in EC2, EC3 or EC4 is booked exactly as a hotel room is. We need the building, the entrance she should use and the floor, and whether a night porter ought to expect her.
How quickly does the desk reply in the early evening?
Inside fifteen minutes between 09:00 and midnight, usually faster. Between midnight and nine it can take longer, and the message you get back still contains a name, a figure and a time rather than a request to call.
Which station should I give as the meeting point?
None of them, ideally. Bank has eleven exits and Liverpool Street has more, so a station is the easiest place in London to miss somebody. Give a hotel lobby or a building address; if you want a bar first, name it and name the street it stands on.
Send the room and the hour
Write the district, the time and the length of the booking. The desk answers with a name and an arrival window, and the evening is set.