Broadgate evenings beside Liverpool Street, EC2M
EC2M is a small postcode doing a great deal of work. A station with eight railways in it, an office estate built over the platforms, and a ring of hotels within four minutes of the barriers. This page is about the people who finish at Broadgate and decide not to go home, and what an evening here costs them.
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by name- EC2M 7QNLiverpool Street
- EC3A 7ABCity of London
- E1 6JQShoreditch
- EC2A 1DXFinsbury Square
Nearest platforms
Walking time- Liverpool Street1 min walk
- Moorgate5 min walk
- Aldgate8 min walk
Nearest carriages to Liverpool Street
Luna and Stacy give Liverpool Street as the stop they work most, and the 6 carriages above are the nearest on service tonight. Any of the 28 on the the board can be asked for by name instead.
Broadgate, Exchange Square and the concourse
Broadgate is an estate rather than a street: a set of squares and low towers built over the western throat of the station in the eighties, since rebuilt piece by piece. Exchange Square looks down on the platforms from a terrace, and in winter there is a rink in one of the circles below it.
The station itself was rebuilt around its Victorian train shed, and the ironwork is still there above the concourse if you look up on the way through. Bishopsgate runs down the east side with the tall glass of the City behind it. Everything in EC2M is within five minutes of everything else, and after seven on a weekday the whole postcode empties in about twenty minutes.
Where people sleep beside EC2M
The house at EC2M 7QN was built into the station in 1884 and is still connected to the concourse, which makes it the shortest walk from a platform to a room in London. The tall new tower at EC3A 7AB is four minutes south. The Finsbury Square house at EC2A 1DX is a few minutes north, and the High Street hotel at E1 6JQ is ten minutes north east.
We name those four because guests ask, not because we have any tie to them. Serviced apartments around Sun Street and Appold Street take the longer corporate stays, and she visits those on the same terms and at the same figure.
Every line in the building
Liverpool Street carries the Central, Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan lines, the Elizabeth line, the main line out to Essex and Norfolk, and the Stansted Express. Moorgate is five minutes west on foot and adds the Northern line. Aldgate is eight minutes south east.
Her way in is by road along London Wall or through Clerkenwell, thirty minutes or so once the evening peak has gone, forty before it. The desk tells you which side of that you are on when it confirms. Zone 1, so her fare never reaches your figure.
The people who stay instead of catching the train
Liverpool Street is a commuter station, which means most of the postcode leaves at six. The bookings come from the ones who do not: people with a hotel room because tomorrow starts early, people whose train can wait, and people in London for two days who have chosen to stay beside the station for the convenience. They write in late in the afternoon, they want a start between seven and nine, and they are almost always working the next morning, which shapes the length they choose.
There is a seasonal pattern to it that nobody at the desk can explain. December is the busiest month in EC2M by a wide margin, and the bookings that month are longer and start later, because the office party has already happened and nobody wants to go home at nine. January is the quietest.
Eighteen forty, and the last train missed on purpose
Twenty past seven, a room at EC2M 7QN, three hours at £700. She meets you in the bar downstairs, which is one of the few rooms in EC2M where nobody is discussing work. Dinner two minutes away on the Spitalfields side, then back through the concourse with the departure boards clearing. The booking ends at twenty past ten and you are in a lift ninety seconds later.
Ninety minutes at £400 is the short answer when there is an early start tomorrow. Four hours at £900 is the one to take when there is not, and it leaves the evening unhurried from the first drink to the last.
Companions nearest the barriers, and the districts beyond
Luna and Stacy are the two who work the station end. Lea and Roxi are five minutes east, Angelika five minutes north and Sonya eight minutes south. The full roster is on the board and the fee is the same whoever you pick.
Spitalfields begins five minutes east across Bishopsgate. Shoreditch is nine minutes north, Aldgate eight minutes south east, and Whitechapel is one stop out on the Elizabeth line.
Two notes worth reading for Liverpool Street
Liverpool Street, asked and answered
01My train gets in at nine. Can I write in from it?
Yes, that is the usual way it happens here. Send your arrival time and Nell will have somebody at the hotel shortly after you are through the barriers.
02How long does she take to reach EC2M?
Around thirty minutes once the evening peak has cleared, closer to forty before it. You are told which before the booking is agreed.
03What does three hours cost?
£700, her journey included. Ninety minutes is £400 and four hours is £900. Nothing is charged for travel inside Zones 1 and 2.
04Will she come to a serviced apartment near Sun Street?
Yes, and on terms no different from a hotel room. Give the building, the apartment number and the name the let is held under.
05Is Broadgate and Moorgate covered by this page?
Yes, the whole estate and across to Moorgate and Finsbury Square. The figure does not change inside EC2M.
Next along from Liverpool Street
The trains stop. We do not.
One message with the date, the time and the postcode, and the rest of the night is arranged quietly, anywhere from Hoxton down to the basin at Limehouse.