Osterley escorts in TW7, park gates at one end and the A4 at the other

A National Trust estate at the end of a tube line

Osterley Park and House stands at the end of a long avenue off Jersey Road, and the gate is three minutes from Osterley station on the Piccadilly line. There is a lake, a walled garden, a great deal of grass and a house that was remodelled by Robert Adam in the 1760s and looks it. Very few places in London put that much park that close to a platform.

The gates are firm about closing times and they vary with the season, so an afternoon start is the one that works. Book for four o'clock and you get the circuit, the long avenue and the bench that holds the last of the sun; book for seven and you get a locked gate and a walk along a fence. The park in drizzle is empty and smells wonderful, which is an argument for going anyway.

Windmill Lane and the garden behind the pub

The Hare and Hounds sits on Windmill Lane two minutes from the station with a large garden at the back, and in July it is somewhere you would genuinely choose to be rather than somewhere you have settled for. In January it is somewhere you look at through a window, which is also fine.

That is more or less the extent of the nightlife, and this page is not going to invent any more of it. What TW7 offers is a quiet couple of hours in a good garden with a tube station two minutes away, then dinner five minutes down the road. For a certain kind of evening that is better than a busier postcode.

Getting here and getting back

Osterley station is three minutes from the park gates on the Piccadilly line. Syon Lane, fifteen minutes south on foot, is South Western Railway and useful for Waterloo. Boston Manor is twenty minutes east and back on the Piccadilly line again.

From central London the usual route is the District line to Hammersmith and the Piccadilly from there, which comes to about forty five minutes. It is not a short journey and we would rather say so than pretend. The line runs until around half past midnight, and all night on Fridays and Saturdays, so getting back is easier than getting here.

The rooms are on the Golden Mile

All the beds within reach sit on the Great West Road. TW7 5NA has that garden behind it that most guests never find. TW5 0BU is further west towards Hounslow. TW8 0GP is east along the same road among the Golden Mile frontages. All three take cars easily, which matters here because the A4 is not a road anybody enjoys walking beside.

None of these hotels is a partner and none has been asked to be. They are listed because that is where people are. Residential bookings in TW7 are at least as common and the streets north of the park are as quiet as anywhere in the borough.

The two who work TW7

Laura walks the park most weeks whether she is working or not, and she likes an afternoon start that turns into an evening on the Great West Road. Vanessa takes the garden on Windmill Lane at six and then dinner five minutes away, and she leaves proper space for an answer before asking the next question.

Cindy and Violetta are both a few minutes away on the Isleworth side, and Tina comes across from Brentford. The rest of the list is in On The Route.

The nearest pages

Isleworth shares this postcode and adds a river at the end of a street. Brentford is east along the A4 with a canal and a stadium. Hounslow Central is the nearest proper high street, two stops west. And Hounslow West carries on towards the heath and the airport road.