The W1J line: Piccadilly escorts for the grand hotels along the mile

Along the mile

The Royal Academy at Burlington House stays open late on Fridays and hangs its Summer Exhibition from June. Burlington Arcade, beside it, closes in the early evening, its beadles in top hats seeing the last browsers out. Fortnum & Mason keeps its tea salon on the fourth floor and its clock on the facade. Across the road, St James's Church, built by Wren, holds lunchtime recitals, and Hatchards, the oldest bookshop in London, sells from a shopfront a few doors along.

Fortnum's closes in the evening and the arcade before it, but the Royal Academy's Friday openings, the dining rooms along the mile and the bars of the big hotels carry the street well past eleven. After midnight Piccadilly becomes a road of taxis and lit lobbies, and the account is as open then as it is at noon.

At night the street is broad, lit and full of taxis in both directions, which makes it one of the easiest addresses in London for an arrival nobody notices.

Hotels on or just off Piccadilly

The arcaded hotel at the Green Park end is the grandest and the most photographed. The house under the living wall faces the park further west, smaller and more private. A panelled townhouse hotel is a minute north up Albemarle Street, with the Donovan Bar for a quiet first drink. At the eastern end, a gilded corner building fills the Regent Street junction above the Circus, and its 1865 room, once Oscar Wilde's favourite, is still the most dramatic place on the mile to begin.

Companions arrive at every one of them as a named guest's visitor. None is tied to the house, and the list above is a map, not a network.

Stations on the mile

Piccadilly Circus, Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines, is about 2 minutes from the gilded corner and the eastern end. Green Park, Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria, is around 4 minutes from the arcade and Albemarle Street. Hyde Park Corner closes the western end. The Piccadilly line runs directly beneath the street all the way from Heathrow, useful for a guest arriving with luggage and no wish to change trains.

Between message and arrival

Give the house a day, an hour, a length and a hotel. A companion and the exact figure come back in writing, and a same evening booking usually reaches a Piccadilly hotel about an hour after that confirmation, longer when the mile is gridlocked at the rush. One WhatsApp check follows, full name and room number, and she sets out; her expected time is written into the same thread.

The fee is paid to her in person when she arrives, the same figure as the written reply, with nothing added for a grand hotel address. The complete sequence is on the booking page.

Guests on Piccadilly

Piccadilly bookings are the most varied on the account. Gallery goers who spend Friday evening at the Royal Academy and want company for the late supper after. First time visitors staying near Fortnum's, who book two hours and a walk. Guests at the arcaded hotel who reserved the Palm Court and want someone to share the tea with. Business travellers at the Regent Street corner, back from a meeting in St James's, booking at nine for the evening that remains.

An evening, east to west

18:00, the Royal Academy on a Friday, one room and one opinion each. 19:15, the walk west along Piccadilly to Hide, where the staircase is carved from oak and the windows look across Green Park. 21:00, a few minutes on foot to the living wall or back along the colonnade at the Green Park end. The three hour booking, £700, covers it end to end.

Companions nearest Piccadilly

The street is shared ground for several home districts. From Mayfair, Luna photographs these streets at night and knows where the light falls best. From Belgravia, Patricia will stop at Hatchards if you let her, bookshops being her weakness. From Covent Garden, Karolina, tall and private, enjoys architecture walks and has views on Burlington House. Jasmin, based in Soho, is ideal for a booking that begins after the theatre at the Circus end.

Either side of the mile

Green Park runs along the southern side at the western end. St James's lies directly south of the eastern half. North, the side streets lead into Berkeley Square and Bond Street, and the mile ends at Piccadilly Circus.