Marylebone, W1U and W1G, where the evening begins earlier

Marylebone High Street runs for about six hundred metres and holds a bookshop that has been there since 1936, a Sunday farmers market in a car park behind it, and enough dining rooms to make a week of it. Around it, Marylebone Lane bends on the line of an underground river and Manchester Square holds the Wallace Collection, which keeps a Fragonard, a Velazquez and the best free courtyard in W1.

W1G to the east is quieter and more clinical, Harley Street consulting rooms behind Georgian doors, and it empties completely after six. Between the two the district has more residential addresses than hotel ones, which is worth knowing when you plan how somebody arrives.

Baker Street sits four minutes above the high street and carries five lines, the Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Jubilee and Metropolitan, more than any other station in this part of town. Bond Street is six minutes from the southern end with the Central, Jubilee and Elizabeth lines. Regent's Park is seven minutes north on the Bakerloo, and Marylebone station itself is eight minutes west with the Bakerloo and the national rail lines out to the Chilterns.

Most arrivals here come through Baker Street or Bond Street and walk. Two of the women on this page live inside the district and walk the whole way, which is why an evening in W1U often starts within twenty five minutes of the desk confirming it.

W1U 7PA is a Victorian fire station with a dining room that has been difficult to book for a decade and fifteen rooms upstairs that most people forget exist. W1G 8DN sits at the bottom of the high street with a pool in the basement. W1H 7JB is a Georgian house on Seymour Street with a cocktail room decorated like a slightly eccentric relative's drawing room.

W1B 1JA is six minutes south east and opened in 1865 as the first grand hotel in the country. NW1 6JQ, just over the boundary, has an eight storey glazed atrium with palm trees in it, and NW1 6QN faces the garden where the first cricket ground was laid out. All six are addresses, nothing else. No hotel has an arrangement with this desk.

A good share of the bookings in W1U and W1G go to flats rather than hotel rooms, in the mansion blocks around Portman Square, Bryanston Square and Devonshire Place. Porters in these buildings are used to guests and ask for a flat number rather than a name, which is generally the end of the conversation.

For a residence the desk needs the street, the block and the floor, and it is worth saying whether there is a porter at all, because half these buildings have an entryphone and nothing else. Beyond that the arrangement is identical to a hotel booking, on the same figures, with the journey already counted.

Half past six, a drink in a room with about twenty seats in it. Half past seven, a table on the high street or one of the side streets, the kind of place where the waiter recognises half the room. Half past nine, a walk down Marylebone Lane, which is more interesting at night than it has any right to be. Ten, either a nightcap or the short walk back.

Two hours at £500 carries the first half of that. Three hours at £700 carries all of it comfortably. The dinner date at £900 is the booking for the night before something that matters, and ten hours at £1,800 goes to guests with a train from Marylebone or Euston in the morning.

Liana lives here, minutes from Portman Square, and is the most restful company on the whole list. Rosa also lives in the district and walks to most of her bookings, which makes her the fastest arrival in this postcode by some way.

From nearby, Sonya comes across from Fitzrovia for the long conversation, Samanta walks up from Mayfair in twelve minutes, Bianka reaches any W1 door in twenty from Knightsbridge, Milena is the one for a three course evening that keeps going, and Thea comes in from South Kensington in twenty, gentle company and no need to try hard. Everyone on On The Books travels here on the same figures.

South across Oxford Street the tone changes completely and Mayfair begins at Grosvenor Square. East along Mortimer Street the media streets of Fitzrovia start in about ten minutes. The whole of the western postcode, this district included, is set out on the W1 page, and the broader map of the zone is on the Central London page. Baker Street, Marble Arch and Regent's Park all sit on the edges of the district.