Gloucester Road escorts in SW7, along the hotel corridor off Cromwell Road

Cromwell Road carries traffic from the west into town, and Gloucester Road crosses it at right angles beside the station. North of the junction, Queen's Gate Gardens and Stanhope Gardens are quiet stucco squares around communal gardens. South, Harrington Gardens is the surprise of the district: a row of red brick houses with tall Flemish gables and terracotta ornament, built in the 1880s for clients who wanted something other than white paint.

The station is worth a second look. Its Circle and District platforms sit open to the sky in a brick cutting, and a disused platform there has long been used to show large works of public art. Around it, Gloucester Road keeps the everyday shops of a real neighbourhood, which is why guests staying a week find it easier to live in than the grander streets nearby.

No single hotel defines Gloucester Road, so the list runs longer than elsewhere. Each is named because companions go through its doors regularly, never because of an agreement. There is none, with any of them.

Millennium Bailey's Hotel stands on Gloucester Road almost opposite the station, a Victorian building with a proper lobby. Millennium Gloucester Hotel is a minute behind it on Harrington Gardens, larger and busier, popular with conference guests. Blakes Hotel on Roland Gardens is the dramatic one, dark lacquer and heavy fabric in a row of Victorian houses. 100 Queen's Gate Hotel occupies a restored Victorian building to the north, and the tall Holiday Inn London Kensington Forum on Cromwell Road is the landmark most taxi drivers use to find the area.

Serviced apartments are just as common here, on the side streets north and south of Cromwell Road. For those, include the building name and flat number in your message.

Gloucester Road station stands about 1 minute from the hotels on its doorstep and serves the Circle, District and Piccadilly lines. South Kensington, which has those same lines, is roughly 6 minutes east on foot by way of Harrington Road.

The Piccadilly line shapes the district. Trains run from every Heathrow terminal to Gloucester Road without a change, and a good share of bookings here are made from an arrivals hall or a taxi queue, for the evening of landing.

Send the desk your landing time and your hotel, and pick a start that leaves an hour to check in, shower and change. Replies come within 10 to 15 minutes. Once you have a key, message the room number; the desk pairs it with the hotel and the name on your booking, and only then does she set out. From that moment, expect her at the door inside the hour.

A room visit of the standard kind is held once 25 percent arrives by bank transfer, and whatever remains is paid at the door in cash or later by transfer. When jet lag argues for a long, slow night instead, the ten hour overnight costs £1,800 and is held with half paid ahead, the travel slice of that half being non-refundable.

Plans move after long flights, so the cancellation rule is worth knowing: three or more hours' warning costs nothing, a cancellation inside two hours of the start is charged at half, and a guest who is simply not there pays in full.

Most are travellers: three nights of meetings, a trade fair at Olympia, a family visit or a first look at the museums. Some stay far longer in the serviced apartments and treat Gloucester Road as a temporary home. They are practical guests who know what they want from an evening, and the companions who suit them are relaxed, punctual and glad to fit around a schedule rather than impose one.

Half past seven: a drink in your hotel as she arrives. Eight: dinner at the Bombay Brasserie on Courtfield Road, a large, handsome room whose glass conservatory glows like a lantern after dark, a minute from the station. Ten: a slow walk north up Gloucester Road and round the gardens of Queen's Gate, then back to the room.

That runs to roughly three hours, £700. Arriving tired and wanting only supper and company in the room, two hours at £500 is enough. The four hour dinner date at £900 gives the evening room to breathe.

Nobody on the roster gives Gloucester Road as her home district, but the three who live in South Kensington are a six minute walk away: Danielle, Milena and Thea. A little further south, the Chelsea companions Cindy, Michelle and Stacy are a short taxi ride off. Every name in the gallery covers the corridor on the same fees.

East is South Kensington and the museums. One stop west, the terraces of Earls Court begin. North, Queen's Gate climbs to Kensington and the park. For the postcode picture, the SW7 guide sets the whole belt out on one page.