Highgate escorts in N6, a hilltop village with no station of its own

No station in the village, and none coming

Highgate station is on the Northern line and sits down on Archway Road, about nine minutes below the High Street and a climb the whole way back. Archway, twelve minutes away at the foot of the hill, is the other Northern line option and the one most cars use as a landmark. There is nothing on the High Street itself and there never has been, which is why the village has stayed the shape it is.

The practical version: from the middle of town allow forty minutes by train and the hill, or something between thirty and fifty in a car depending on what the Archway roundabout is doing. The walk up from the station at midnight is real, and it is also lit, safe along the main roads and, in the view of most companions who work here, the best part of the evening. Nobody up here pretends otherwise, and nobody pretends a taxi is waiting either.

Where the nearest rooms are

There is no hotel in N6. Guests who want a room book down the hill and come up, and the evening is arranged around that rather than in spite of it.

NW3 6SS on Heath Street and NW3 6AG on Frognal are both in Hampstead, on the opposite ridge, fifteen to twenty minutes away by car round the edge of the heath. The canal side hotel at NW1 7BY is further but better connected, about twenty minutes down and a straightforward run back. None of the three is a partner of ours; a companion simply arrives as your guest.

The alternative, and the more common one here, is a private address. Highgate is largely houses and garden flats, and residential bookings are the bulk of the work. Give the desk the lane and the house name, since the hill hides half its streets from a map and several of them are reached only from one end.

An hour on the hill before anything else

Lauderdale House sits in Waterlow Park halfway down the western slope, a white sixteenth century house with a terrace looking south across the entire city, and the park around it was given to the public as a garden for people who had none. It is the natural first hour of a summer evening, and the gates close at dusk, which is the sort of detail worth knowing before you plan.

The Flask on Highgate West Hill is a low warren of a pub from the sixteen hundreds with a courtyard that fills the moment the weather allows. Swain's Lane runs down between the two halves of the cemetery, which is worth walking past even when it is shut, and Highgate Wood at the north end of the village is twenty eight hectares of genuine woodland that most Londoners have never set foot in.

The shape of an N6 booking

Longer than average, because the journey deserves it. An hour up here is possible and rarely satisfying; three hours at £700 is the usual shape, taking in the park or a pub, a table and the walk between them. The dinner date at £900 suits a summer evening when the courtyard is open and nobody wants to look at a clock.

Notice helps more here than anywhere else on this site. A few hours rather than a few minutes lets a companion set out early enough to arrive unhurried, which matters when the last part of the journey is a climb. The pubs on the hill fill early and empty early, so an evening that starts at six often ends better than one that starts at nine. The booking page explains how a request is confirmed.

Who works the hill

Karolina and Patricia are both anchored in Highgate and both are straight about what it costs to get here. Karolina opens on the terrace at Lauderdale House when the gates allow and asks for an address rather than a postcode. Patricia keeps to the old pub on West Hill, walks down past the cemetery gates afterwards and has never once suggested a taxi for the twelve minutes back down.

Across the heath, Jasmin, Nora and Vanessa come over from Hampstead in about fifteen minutes. North, Lea and Roxi travel across from Muswell Hill. Downhill, Lucy reaches N6 from Kentish Town in about ten minutes by road.

Off the ridge

West across the heath, Hampstead is the matching village on the matching hill, fifteen to twenty minutes by car and a proper walk on foot. North, the Broadway at Muswell Hill is ten minutes by road and has the same problem with stations in a worse form. Downhill and south, Kentish Town is where the trains and the late kitchens are. South east, Finsbury Park is fifteen minutes by bus and opens two tube lines and the mainline.