Marylebone, W1U and W1G, and an evening built round a concert

The hall, and the hour after it

Wigmore Hall audiences leave quietly and quickly, and by ten past nine the street is empty again. A two hour booking that starts at nine is £500 and fits the evening exactly: a table two streets away, a conversation about what you have just heard, and home before the district goes to sleep, which it does earlier than anywhere else in W1. Book the performance yourself, as host, and tell Tamsin the time it ends.

Daylight here is worth something too

The Wallace Collection sits on Manchester Square in a house that still feels like one, with armour downstairs and Dutch painting upstairs and a glazed courtyard in the middle for lunch. An afternoon booking that takes in an hour of it and a long table afterwards is among the better uses of two hours in central London, and it costs the same £500 it would at night. One of our companions will happily stand in front of a single painting for ten minutes, which is either a virtue or a warning depending on your temperament.

Six hotels, and the village they sit in

W1U 7PA, in the old fire station on Chiltern Street. W1G 8DN, on Welbeck Street. W1H 7JB, on Seymour Street. W1B 1JA, at the top of Regent Street facing the BBC. NW1 6QN, on its own square, and NW1 6JQ, on the Marylebone Road with the glass roof over the atrium.

None of them is a partner of this house and none has been asked to be. They appear here because guests sleep in them, and because an entrance is easier the second time.

Stations, and the walking minutes

Baker Street is 4 minutes, and carries the Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Jubilee and Metropolitan lines, which is more than most of central London manages. Bond Street is 6 minutes south with the Central, Jubilee and Elizabeth lines. Regent's Park is 7 minutes north on the Bakerloo. Marylebone station itself is 8 minutes, for the Chilterns and the Bakerloo. Your companion arrives by car regardless, and the fare is inside the fee.

Who books in the village

Concert-goers, obviously, and rather more of them than you would guess. Consultants and their patients from the Harley Street streets, who want an evening that is not about the appointment. Residents of the flats above the high street, which are more numerous than the shopfronts suggest. And visitors who chose Marylebone over Mayfair on purpose, because it is a place where a person can walk about at nine in the evening without being looked at.

The two who live here

Liana is twenty-eight, composed, chestnut haired and perfectly content to look at one painting for a while. She takes daytime bookings as readily as evenings, which suits an afternoon on Manchester Square followed by a table. Rosa is twenty-five, curly, wears prints nobody else would attempt, and laughs early and often; she is easy at short notice and knows the quiet upstairs room on the high street.

From ten minutes south, Angelika, Luna and Samanta come up from Mayfair, and Roxi and Tiffany from around the square.

The edges of Marylebone

South across Oxford Street lies Mayfair, ten minutes on foot from Manchester Square. The square at the top of Mayfair is nearer still, about eight. Park Lane is reached through Marble Arch in twelve minutes, or five by car. Baker Street, Regent's Park and Great Portland Street run along the northern side and are attended on the same terms as everything else on this list.