Kensington W8 hotel stays: an escort to your room off the High Street, late or early

Five hotels, from Olympia to the gardens

Listed so you can place them, nothing more. No hotel on this page works with the desk, and she arrives as someone you have invited.

Royal Garden Hotel, W8 4PT, right beside Kensington Gardens, with Min Jiang on the tenth floor looking out across the park. The Milestone Hotel, W8 5DL, a red brick Victorian building facing the gardens at the corner of Kensington Court. On Hyde Park Gate, just over the postcode line, Baglioni Hotel, SW7 5BB. The Kensington, SW7 5LR, a row of white stucco houses on Queen's Gate. And at the western end of the High Street, Hilton London Olympia, W14 8NL, the natural base for exhibitions at Olympia.

The serviced apartments around Kensington Court and the flats in the garden squares are treated like any hotel room: building, flat number and your full name.

Two of the five, Baglioni and The Kensington, carry SW7 postcodes and turn up on our South Kensington page as well. Locals argue about exactly where W8 hands over to SW7 somewhere along Kensington Gore. For the desk it makes no difference which side of that line your room is on.

High Street Kensington and two more

High Street Kensington station opens into a shopping arcade, about 1 minute from the High Street itself. Notting Hill Gate is roughly 8 minutes north, up the slope of Kensington Church Street. Gloucester Road, about 9 minutes south, is the one to use for the Queen's Gate hotels and the Piccadilly line.

All three are in Zone 1, and Olympia sits just inside Zone 2, so her travel is covered by the fee at every address on this page.

Timing, and booking the same person twice

Kensington is a short drive from most home districts on the rota, and a confirmed booking usually reaches the hotel within the hour. The High Street is slowest on Saturday afternoons and on exhibition days at Olympia; after dark it moves freely.

Guests on a long stay often book the same companion more than once. That is easy to arrange. Ask for her by name, suggest the evenings you have in mind, and Henrietta confirms each one separately with the usual three checks, name, address and flat or room, then a time in writing. Each evening is paid for on the evening, to her, in person, as she comes in.

Who stays in W8

Long stay guests, above all: people in London for a posting, a course, a medical appointment or a family matter, living for weeks in a hotel suite or a serviced flat. Exhibition visitors at Olympia for three or four days. Residents of the garden squares who prefer to invite company home. The typical request is two hours at £500 or a dinner at £900, repeated across a stay.

A Kensington evening, unhurried

A guest four weeks into a stay at the Milestone books a dinner evening for Thursday. She arrives at half past seven, and they walk up Kensington Church Street past the antique shops, closed and softly lit, to a table at Clarke's, which has been cooking on that street for decades. They take the long way back along the edge of the gardens. A nightcap in the hotel's small bar, an hour of conversation, and at half past eleven she leaves with the following Thursday already pencilled in.

Near neighbours on the rota

The closest companions live just south, in South Kensington: Milena and Thea. Across the gardens in Paddington, Nora is a few minutes away by car, and Cindy comes up from Chelsea. Everyone on the available list visits Kensington at the same rate.

Around the edges of W8

South along Queen's Gate, South Kensington begins at the museums and the Albert Hall. East past the Albert Memorial lie Knightsbridge and its larger hotels. North through the gardens and across the Bayswater Road, the Paddington hotels cluster around the station. Holland Park, to the west, is covered on the same terms.