Venues in West London

West London runs from the western edge of Hyde Park out along the river to Kew and Brentford. It holds the museum quarter of South Kensington, laid out on the profits of the 1851 Great Exhibition; Chelsea, with Wren’s Royal Hospital of 1682 and the King’s Road behind it; the stucco terraces of Notting Hill and Bayswater; White City, built for the Franco-British Exhibition and the Olympic Games of 1908; and the Thames reach through Hammersmith, Fulham and Chiswick. Further out, Kew is a World Heritage Site of Victorian glasshouses and three hundred acres of botanic garden, and Syon at Brentford keeps Robert Adam’s interiors and Charles Fowler’s Great Conservatory.

The hire product is domestic in grain and generous in space. Where Central sells ballrooms, West sells gardens, galleries, private houses and river frontage: forty-two acres of lawn at Fulham Palace, a Palladian villa at Chiswick, glasshouses at Kew that seat a dinner under palms. The restaurants of Notting Hill, Chelsea and Chiswick are neighbourhood rooms held to metropolitan standards, which suits a party of sixty better than a hotel does, and the museums and studios take the large evenings. It is the part of London where an outdoor plan is realistic from May to September.

Access is straightforward as far as Hammersmith and wants thought beyond it. The District, Circle and Piccadilly lines serve the inner areas, the Elizabeth line reaches Paddington, and Heathrow is half an hour from the western end, which counts for an international guest list. Kew, Brentford and Chiswick are rail or river journeys and read as a short trip out of town. Evenings end earlier than in Soho: residential licensing is tighter here, and the neighbourhoods expect it.