Muswell HillN10 · outcall only
Muswell Hill escorts in N10, and the truth about getting up here
Muswell Hill has no Underground station, has never had one, and is not getting one. Everything else about the place follows from that. The Broadway is a curved Edwardian parade of shops on a ridge two hundred and eighty feet above the Thames, with an art deco cinema in the middle of it and Alexandra Palace on the next rise along, and the whole neighbourhood keeps village hours because the city is genuinely far away rather than fashionably far away.
We would rather write that plainly than dress it up. Below: what the journey really costs in minutes, where the nearest rooms are, what is worth doing once you are here, the shape of an evening that suits a hill, and the two women anchored on it. The rates ladder applies in N10 exactly as it does in NW1, and the list is a tap away.
Hotels by postcode
Never by name- NW3 6SSHeath Street, Hampstead
- NW3 6AGFrognal, Hampstead
- NW1 7BYCamden Town
Nearest platforms
On foot- Alexandra Palace18 min walk
- Highgate20 min walk
- East Finchley22 min walk
Lit this evening
Nearest panels to Muswell Hill
Roxi gives Muswell Hill as the postcode she knows best, and the 6 panels above are the ones lit closest to it tonight. Any of the 28 on the list can be asked for by name instead.
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The honest journey
Alexandra Palace station is the nearest rail platform and is an eighteen minute walk from the Broadway, most of it uphill on the way back. Highgate on the Northern line is twenty minutes on foot, downhill going and a proper climb returning. East Finchley, also Northern line, is twenty two. There is nothing closer, and anybody who tells you the Broadway has a station is thinking of somewhere else.
In practice people arrive three ways. By car, which from the middle of town is forty minutes on a quiet evening and closer to an hour on a Friday. By the Victoria line to Finsbury Park and the W7 bus up the hill, which is the best part of an hour altogether and is what most companions do. Or by train to Alexandra Palace and the walk. None of these is quick and there is no version that is. A companion travelling up here gives the true figure rather than the flattering one, and she sets out accordingly.
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Why people come anyway
Alexandra Palace stands on its own ridge with the transmitter behind it and the southern half of London spread out in front, a stiff eighteen minute walk from the station of the same name. The terrace facing south about twenty minutes before the lights come on properly is, by common agreement among everybody who works up here, the best free view in the city.
On the Broadway itself the Everyman on Fortis Green Road is an art deco cinema from the nineteen thirties with a ceiling worth the ticket on its own. The restaurants either side of it are quiet by ten, which is a feature rather than a failure: this is a neighbourhood that eats early and talks late, and by nine you can have a corner of a room to yourselves without asking for it. Highgate Wood is ten minutes south and is real woodland rather than a park pretending.
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There are no rooms on the hill
N10 has no hotel. Guests who want a bed book a good way down and come up, or the booking is residential, and residential is what the overwhelming majority of Muswell Hill work actually is.
The guesthouse at NW3 6SS and the Edwardian house at NW3 6AG are both in Hampstead, twenty five minutes away by car across the top of the heath. The hotel on the canal at NW1 7BY is thirty five to forty minutes down, and is the easier of the two options if you are also travelling by train. We hold no arrangement with any of them, and a companion arrives as your guest exactly as she would anywhere else.
For a flat or a house up here, give the desk the road and the number. The streets off the Broadway curve with the contour and several of them change name halfway along, which defeats a driver working from a postcode.
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An evening that respects the hill
Long, and started earlier than you would start one in town. Three hours at £700 is the natural booking here, and the dinner date at £900 suits a night with a film in the middle of it. An hour is possible and, given what the journey costs both of you, almost never the right choice.
Notice matters. A few hours rather than a few minutes lets a companion catch the bus she wants rather than the one that comes. The Broadway winds down around ten, so a start at six or half past gives you the view, a film or a walk, and a table without any of it being hurried. The way home wants thinking about before the second half rather than after it, and everybody who works up here does exactly that as a matter of habit.
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The two anchored up here
Lea and Roxi both work Muswell Hill and both are honest about the distance. Lea starts on the terrace at Alexandra Palace while there is still something to see, names four or five things on the skyline and gets at least one of them wrong with complete confidence. Roxi picks the film herself, watches it in silence and argues about it for forty minutes afterwards over dinner ten doors down, and she plans the journey home before the credits rather than after.
From the ridge to the south, Karolina and Patricia come across from Highgate in about ten minutes by road. From the interchange below, Laura and Rosa travel up from Finsbury Park on the same bus everybody else uses. The rest of the list will come, and the desk will tell you honestly how long it takes.
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Down off the hill
South, Highgate is ten minutes by road along the top and shares the same problem with stations in a milder form. South east and down, the interchange at Finsbury Park is the bus route everybody uses and the point at which the city starts behaving normally again. West, Hampstead is twenty five minutes across the heath by car and is the nearest village with rooms in it.
From North Reads
Two sheets worth reading for Muswell Hill
Cut sheet6 min readFlat B, the side door and the bell that sticks: a first evening at homeUp here most evenings begin at a front door rather than a hotel lobby, and usually a door shared with two other flats. What to send, how to handle the stairs, and how to make her arrival look like a friend's.Read it
Cut sheet6 min readTwo hilltop villages, no hotel on either, and where visitors actually sleepHighgate and Muswell Hill are two of the loveliest villages in London and neither has a hotel. The Hampstead and Camden rooms guests use instead, the real car times up the hill, and when a private address wins.Read it
5 questions, answered straight
Muswell Hill, asked and answered
Is there genuinely no tube in Muswell Hill?
None at all, and there never has been. Alexandra Palace station is eighteen minutes on foot, Highgate is twenty and East Finchley twenty two. A car or the bus up from Finsbury Park is how people actually arrive.
How long will a companion take to reach N10?
Between forty minutes and an hour from the middle of town, depending on the day and the route. We quote the real figure rather than the hopeful one, so book a few hours ahead rather than a few minutes.
Where is the nearest hotel?
Hampstead, about twenty five minutes away by car, or Camden at thirty five to forty. There is nothing on the hill itself, so most bookings here are at private addresses.
How late does the Broadway stay open?
Not very. Kitchens wind down around ten and the street is quiet by eleven. That is why evenings here start earlier than they would in town, and why they rarely feel rushed.
Is the view from Alexandra Palace worth the walk?
Every companion who works this hill says yes, and they are not being polite about it. Face south from the terrace about twenty minutes before the lights come on and you will see why.
Ask on Telegram
A person reads it, not a machine
Walking distance, or close to it
Next along from Muswell Hill
The sign stays lit
Give the desk an hour and a street, and the rest of the night is arranged quietly, anywhere from the lock at Camden to the Broadway on the ridge.