Park side evenings in NW1, timed to the hour the gates shut

The park, and the hour it keeps

Queen Mary's Gardens sit inside the Inner Circle and hold something like twelve thousand roses, which come out in the second half of June and make the whole place smell frankly excessive for about three weeks. From late spring the Open Air Theatre plays on the same circle, a fifteen minute walk in from Baker Street through the beds, with the performance running against real birdsong and the occasional aeroplane. The temperature drops the moment the sun goes behind the trees, which is worth a wrap and nobody ever believes until it happens.

Out of season the park makes a different argument. Bare trees, wide light, an hour of walking before dark and then the terraces around the outside taking over. The gates go and the paths empty within a few minutes; the railings stay, and so does the view through them.

Rooms along the outer edge

NW1 3UP is the closest of the four to the park itself, an enormous nineteen thirties block on the Albany Street side, three or four minutes from the Regent's Park station entrance. NW1 6JQ is on Marylebone Road with a glass roofed atrium in the middle of it, about ten minutes walk west. NW1 6QN is the small one, a townhouse on the square where cricket was first played, twelve minutes west. W1B 1JA is fifteen minutes south at the top of Regent Street, in a different postcode and a different mood.

Companions arrive at all four, at the flats in the Nash terraces around the outer edge, and at private addresses in Marylebone. There is no arrangement with any hotel and none is required. Send the building name and the hour, and she comes as your guest.

Three stations and a long walk in

Regent's Park station is two minutes from the southern edge and carries the Bakerloo line only, which surprises people. Great Portland Street, three minutes, has the Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan lines and is the better connected of the two. Baker Street, six minutes west, carries five lines between them and is the station most visitors actually use, particularly for the theatre, since the walk in from there through the gardens is fifteen minutes and is part of the evening rather than a chore.

From Knightsbridge or South Kensington the honest figure is about twenty minutes on a quiet evening and considerably more when the Marylebone Road decides otherwise. Companions who work here travel early and wait in the gardens rather than arrive flustered, which is the only sensible way to do it.

Starting while there is light

An early start earns its keep here more than anywhere else on the site. Six o'clock in June gives you the gardens, a show or a table, and a walk round part of the Outer Circle afterwards, and you will still be home before midnight. Three hours at £700 is the usual shape. The dinner date at £900 suits a night with the theatre in the middle of it or a winter evening that begins on a terrace instead.

Park theatre evenings in the season want about a week of notice, because the good nights fill. Outside the season a day is plenty. Tell the desk whether you would rather walk first or sit first, and say if you are staying on the outer edge, since that decides which gate is the sensible one to aim for.

Companions on the Inner Circle

Margo and Thea both work this park and approach it from opposite directions. Margo takes the summer theatre seriously, books the season herself, carries a wrap because she knows what the temperature does after ten, and likes the Inner Circle best in the few minutes after the crowd has gone. Thea walks the rose garden first, names about a dozen of them and admits she is guessing at the rest, and is happiest on a terrace once the gates have shut.

Twelve minutes east, Luna and Stacy come across from Euston. North over the hill, Angelika and Tiffany reach the Inner Circle from Camden in about fifteen minutes on foot down Regent's Park Road. The rest of the list travels in easily; this is the best connected address on the site after the stations.

Out through the gates

East along the Marylebone Road, the platforms at Euston are about twelve minutes and the honest start of the north. North across Primrose Hill, Camden Town is twenty minutes on foot down Regent's Park Road and a wholly different noise. A mile and a half east along the same road, the termini at Kings Cross are ten minutes by tube, which makes a park side evening easy to fit around an arrival.