About Lea
Twickenham keeps its river at the end of a short lane, and Lea learned the way down to it before she learned the bus routes. Petite at 161 cm, she has long auburn hair that waves whatever she does to it, and hazel eyes that change with the light coming off the water. She dresses like somebody who expects to end up outdoors at some point: a wool coat over something simple, a scarf she will lend you, shoes that have done the towpath before.
Early twenties, English speaking, and a good deal sharper than the softness suggests. She teases early, which is how she tests a room, and she is generous once she has decided about you. Old buildings are her subject, particularly the ones nobody bothers to visit. She has an excellent memory for a building and a terrible one for a name, and she admits that early.
Orleans House Gallery is the reason she loves this stretch of TW1: an octagon room built in 1720, sitting in woodland by the river, free to walk into, five minutes along from the ferry at Marble Hill. She will do that while the light lasts, then Church Street for dinner, which is the closest thing this side of the river has to an evening in a village. She lives in Belgravia, so it is Waterloo and half an hour, and on a match Saturday she will simply refuse and offer you the Sunday instead.
Weekdays are easier here than weekends, for reasons the Twickenham page explains. Send two possible dates through booking and she will take the better one.
- 161 cm, petite, long wavy auburn hair
- Hazel eyes, early twenties, English speaking
- Anchored in Twickenham, TW1
- Orleans House and the river path before dinner
- Half an hour out of Waterloo
Booking Lea
She takes a late afternoon start so the gallery and the river are still in daylight, then dinner on Church Street. Three hours at £700 is the usual, and she avoids international match days entirely.
Every figure she works to is printed on the fare board, and the four steps from message to doorbell sit on the booking page.
Also out tonight
An evening with Lea
Half past three by the river, and a gallery that most of London does not know exists. The octagon is one room, extravagantly plastered, attached to a house that is no longer there. She likes it because it is a fragment, and because it is quiet, and because it costs nothing.
Then the path back into town past the pubs on the Embankment, which will be full whatever the season. Dinner on Church Street, where the restaurants are small and the tables are close together and she will lower her voice for the good parts of a story. She is easy to keep out late and honest about when she would rather go home, which she considers the same courtesy in both directions.
Lea, on the record
Q.01Why do you avoid match days?
Eighty thousand people arrive in a town built for a fraction of that. The trains are a scrum, the restaurants are booked out and nobody hears a word you say. It is a wonderful day out and a hopeless evening.
Q.02Favourite building out here?
The octagon at Orleans House, without hesitation. All that plasterwork for one room, and the house it belonged to was pulled down. There is something splendid about that.
Q.03Do you mind a short notice booking?
Not if I am already out this way, which I often am. Ask, and you will get a yes or a no rather than a maybe.