London Fields escorts, E8, beside the park and the market
London Fields is eight hectares of grass with a lido in the corner, and the district takes its name and its temper from it. E8 throughout, Broadway Market down one side, the Regent's Canal at the bottom, Mare Street a short walk east. It is a residential booking district with no hotel of its own, and the evenings here reflect that.
Landmarks on the arrival slip
By postcode, never by name- E2 9NFBethnal Green
- E8Hackney Road
- EC2A 3HUShoreditch
Nearest platforms
Walking time- London Fields2 min walk
- Hackney Central9 min walk
- Cambridge Heath9 min walk
Nearest carriages to London Fields
Nora gives London Fields as the stop she works 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.
The park, the lido and Broadway Market
London Fields Lido is fifty metres of heated outdoor water, open all year, and the queue on a cold February morning tells you a good deal about the people who live around it. The park itself has plane trees down the middle and a cricket pitch nobody uses for cricket.
Broadway Market runs from the south east corner of the park down to the canal. On a Saturday it is a food market shoulder to shoulder; the rest of the week it is a street of small shops, a bookshop, a handful of pubs and some of the better eating in E8. Where it meets the water, the towpath runs west to Haggerston and east to Victoria Park, and that walk is the reason a lot of people moved here.
A district without a hotel
There is no hotel beside the park and there is unlikely to be one. Every booking we take in London Fields is at a flat: the Victorian terraces on Lansdowne Drive and Albion Drive, the blocks on Westgate Street, the converted warehouses down by the canal.
Guests who need a room take one nearby and travel in. The old town hall at E2 9NF is twelve minutes south by road, the Hackney Road hotel about the same, and the busy lobby at EC2A 3HU roughly twenty. We have no tie to any of the three and receive nothing from listing them.
One station, two minutes
London Fields station sits on Mentmore Terrace at the east edge of the park, two minutes from the market, on the Overground into Liverpool Street. Hackney Central is nine minutes north on foot, Cambridge Heath nine minutes south, and both add options if the line is having a bad evening.
Her journey in is by road, roughly thirty five minutes from the west of town in the early evening and nearer twenty five once the traffic has thinned. This is Zone 2 and the travel is inside the fee, so the figure you are quoted is the figure.
Who books beside the park
Residents, almost without exception. People who have been in E8 for years and have no intention of leaving it, who cook at home and would rather not cross town for an evening. They book early and they book long. Weekends run differently here: the market fills the whole of Saturday, and a booking that starts at four in the afternoon and runs into the evening is a perfectly normal thing to ask for.
Summer changes the requests as well. The lido opens early and the park fills by six, so evenings here start outside and move indoors rather than the other way round. In winter it is the opposite and the bookings get longer, which suits everyone: there is nothing to do in E8 in February except sit somewhere warm and talk.
Saturday, from the market to the flat
Four in the afternoon, the dinner date length, four hours at £900. She arrives at a flat on Albion Drive, you walk down through the market while it is packing up, take a table at the canal end for an hour and a half, then walk back along the towpath as the light goes. Home by seven, the booking closing at eight.
Two hours at £500 does the shorter version of the same thing without the table. Ninety minutes at £400 suits a weeknight when dinner is already sorted and the point is the company.
Names for E8, and what adjoins it
Jasmin and Nora are anchored on the park. Cindy and Tina come across from Hackney Central, Nancy from Dalston, Karolina up from E2. The whole roster is on the board and the fee is identical whoever comes.
Hackney is nine minutes north on foot. Bethnal Green is straight down Cambridge Heath Road, Dalston is twenty minutes north west, and Hoxton is a straight run along the towpath if the weather is behaving.
Two notes worth reading for London Fields
London Fields, asked and answered
01Can a booking start in the afternoon?
Yes, and at weekends it often does. Four in the afternoon is a normal start here, at the same figure as four in the morning would be.
02What does the four hour dinner date cost?
£900, and below it sit three hours at £700 and two hours at £500. Travel out to E8 is already inside every one of them.
03Does she mind a third floor walk up?
Not at all, but say so when you write in. Nell passes it on so she arrives in the right shoes rather than finding out at the door.
04Is Broadway Market a sensible place to meet first?
On a weekday, yes, and it is a pleasant start to an evening. On a Saturday it is shoulder to shoulder until four, so the flat is the easier option.
05How far ahead should I book for a Saturday?
A day is comfortable and the same morning is usually fine. Weekend evenings in E8 fill first, so the earlier you write the more of the roster is open to you.
Next along from London Fields
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.