The building on St Andrews Place
The Royal College of Physicians stands at 11 St Andrews Place, on the south eastern corner of Regent's Park, and it is a surprise to anyone who expects a learned society to live behind a Georgian front. Sir Denys Lasdun designed it in the early sixties, all white mosaic and crisp concrete set among John Nash's stucco terraces, and it is one of the very few post war buildings in England listed at Grade I. Inside, the great hall rises through two storeys of glass that look out over the college's garden of medicinal plants, and delegates who spend a day in the lecture theatres tend to leave with more affection for the architecture than they expected.
The college hires its rooms out all year, and medical societies in particular come back to it again and again: two tiered auditoriums, a dozen meeting rooms and space for several hundred people at a time. That means a steady stream of visitors who arrive in the morning knowing the programme down to the minute and nothing at all about where they will be at six o'clock. This guide is for that hour.
The first thing to check: is the park still open
Regent's Park is a royal park and its gardens and lawns are locked at dusk, a time that moves through the year from late afternoon in December to well into the evening in June. The Outer Circle, the road that runs round the whole park past the terraces, is a public road and stays open long after the gardens have shut. So the evening divides by season before it divides by anything else.
In the long light months, the best thing to do when the final session ends is simply to cross the Outer Circle and walk into the park. The formal Avenue Gardens lie almost opposite, with the Broad Walk running north from them between its lines of trees, and fifteen minutes' walk brings you to the Inner Circle and the rose garden, or north towards the zoo. In winter, when the gates have already shut by the time the last speaker sits down, the same hour belongs to the terraces instead, and it is hardly a lesser evening.
The Nash terraces, north along the Outer Circle
Walk north from the college along the Outer Circle and you pass the most complete stretch of Regency town planning in London. Nash laid out these terraces in the 1820s as a grand frame for the park, and after dark, with their cream stucco lit and the park black behind the railings, they look more like a stage set than a street. Cambridge Terrace and Chester Terrace come first, Chester with a grand arch at each end carrying its name, and then Cumberland Terrace, the most theatrical of them all, with its pediment full of sculpture and its long columned front.
The whole walk, from the college to Gloucester Gate at the north eastern corner, is about twenty minutes on foot without hurrying. It is lit, quiet and entirely residential, which makes it one of the best walks in London for a conversation, and it delivers you at the top of Parkway with Camden Town a few minutes beyond. It is also the obvious answer when a conference day has been spent entirely indoors and the one thing you want before dinner is air.
A table in Marylebone
Go the other way, south and west past the great curve of Park Crescent, and within fifteen minutes you are in the village streets of Marylebone. The converted fire station on Chiltern Street is the famous address and the hardest table; Trishna, on Blandford Street, is known for the seafood of India's west coast, light enough for the end of a long day; and The Wigmore, the pub belonging to the hotel where Portland Place meets Regent Street, is the relaxed choice for a group that has not quite finished talking shop. Book ahead for any of them; Marylebone fills early on weekday evenings.
Many delegates sleep nearby. The big nineteen thirties block on Albany Street is only a few minutes from the college on foot; the atrium hotel on Marylebone Road and a small townhouse on Dorset Square are on the Marylebone side; and another stands at the foot of Portland Place. Companions visit all of them as guests of the person staying there, and none has any arrangement with us. The Regent's Park page sets out the stations and the rooms in more detail.
A table in Camden, or a train from Euston
At the north end of the terrace walk, an old coaching inn faces the park across Gloucester Gate, with a restaurant and bar that make a natural first stop after the terraces. Parkway runs on from there into Camden Town, with its small restaurants and, a few minutes further, the Jazz Cafe for anyone who wants the evening to keep going.
Plenty of delegates are not staying at all but catching a train home, and for them the geography is kind: Euston is about fifteen minutes' walk east along the Euston Road from the college, or one stop on the Underground from Great Portland Street to Euston Square. The guide to a meal on Drummond Street before a train covers the vegetarian kitchens behind the station and how long each takes against a departure board.
The conference dinner, and a plus one
Some meetings end with a formal dinner, in the college itself or in a hotel ballroom nearby, and a guest who would rather not face it alone can bring a companion as a plus one. That is the booking described under black tie and company dinners: four hours at £900 covers a reception and a seated dinner, and three hours at £700 suits a drinks reception on its own. Copy the dress code from the invitation exactly, give the hour, and add a line or two about who will be at the table and any subject best left alone, and she will arrive briefed.
For an event in the college itself, meet a few minutes beforehand on the Outer Circle rather than in the foyer, so that you cross the threshold as a pair who have already found a subject. Her fee is given to her in person on arrival, before you go in, and inside the room the two of you are simply guests.
Companions for an evening by the park
Margo is anchored at Regent's Park and treats it as her own garden: she can tell you when the gates shut in any month of the year, and she is precise, dry and never more comfortable than at a long table full of strangers. For a formal dinner, guests often ask for someone tall, and the statuesque page lists nine women at 172 centimetres and above. Violetta, the tallest on the list, says little and chooses it well, a gift beside a consultant who has been talking about his own paper since the soup.
Stacy, also on that page, is anchored at Euston a short walk away and suits an evening that has to finish on a platform; she keeps the departure time in her head all night so that you need not. Verity on the evening desk can say which of them is free on the dates of your conference.
Cross filed: most of the names on this sheet also sit in the slim and slender drawer of the moodboard.