Earls Court and Kensington

The bit of west London that visitors pass through and rarely stop in, which is precisely what makes it work. Earls Court and Kensington sit next to each other, look similar on a map, and behave quite differently once the sun goes down.

Earls Court

Red brick mansion blocks, a great many of them, arranged in long terraces around garden squares. Built as flats, still flats, and full of people who have lived there eighteen months and will move on.

That transience is the whole story. Nobody in an Earls Court block knows their neighbours, nobody remarks on comings and goings, and the buildings have lifts, porters and side entrances. It is one of the busiest incall areas we cover for exactly that reason.

The area itself is unglamorous and perfectly pleasant: cheap restaurants, old pubs, a lot of Australians. Nothing about arriving there at nine in the evening is notable. See Earls Court.

Kensington

Wider streets, larger buildings, embassies, and the museums up at the top end. Grander than Earls Court and considerably quieter after dark, because the shops close and the residential streets have nothing to draw anybody.

The hotels here are the interesting part. Kensington and Gloucester Road are thick with mid sized hotels serving the museums and the exhibition traffic, which means a lot of rooms, reasonable rates, and staff who see hundreds of guests a week. See Kensington and Gloucester Road.

South Kensington and High Street Kensington

Worth separating, because people use the names loosely.

South Kensington is museum territory and embassy staff, well lit and comfortable to walk in, with the best transport of the four.

High Street Kensington is shops during the day and residential at night, with a sharp drop in activity around seven. Good for an incall, thin for anything else.

Why the rates sit where they do

Middle of the range across all four, which is the honest sweet spot on this site.

You are paying less than Mayfair or Knightsbridge and getting a considerably wider choice than either, because this is where a lot of the incall flats are. If the priority is finding the right person rather than the right address, west London gives you more to choose from at a given budget. See what a London booking costs.

The transport, which is better than people think

The District and Piccadilly lines both run through, Earls Court is one of the few stations where they cross, and Gloucester Road adds the Circle.

Practically that means Heathrow direct on the Piccadilly, the West End in twelve minutes, and Victoria in eight. It also means the last trains are later than in a lot of central London, because the District runs a long way. Our post on getting around late at night covers the timings.

Eating first

Honestly? Not the reason to come here. South Kensington has a decent handful and Kensington Church Street a few more, but nothing that would pull you across town.

The usual answer is to eat elsewhere and come back, or to treat this as a straightforward incall area and not build an evening around the postcode. Our post on choosing a restaurant covers where the dining rooms actually are.

What it is good for

An uncomplicated booking, at a fair rate, in a building nobody looks at twice, fifteen minutes from wherever you have been.

That is not a small thing. A great deal of what makes an evening go well is that none of the logistics required any thought, and west London is where that is easiest.

See every area we cover, or ring +44 20 7846 3480.