Shoreditch, EC2A, E1 and E2: what the desk can do after ten

What the late desk can arrange

A written reply at any hour it is open, naming who is actually free rather than who you hoped for. A companion at a Shoreditch door inside an hour of your yes, when one is available. A booking that starts at midnight and runs two or three hours. A start time moved later by half an hour on short notice, which happens here more than anywhere.

What it cannot do at that hour: produce a particular name that is already out for the evening, or set up an overnight with no notice at all, since ten hours needs a diary cleared in advance. Cordelia says which of these you are asking for straight away, because a slow no at midnight is worse than a fast one.

EC2A, E1 and E2, and where the boundaries run

EC2A covers the western strip around Old Street, Finsbury Square and Curtain Road, where the towers of the City stop abruptly and the older brick starts. E1 takes Spitalfields, Brick Lane and the ground down towards Whitechapel. E2 runs north east past Arnold Circus into Bethnal Green. It is a small area, walkable end to end in twenty minutes, and it changes character every few streets.

The desk asks for the street name as well as the building, because the numbering here is inherited from a century of warehouses becoming flats, and two doors on the same block can belong to different worlds.

Hotels, and the rooms above the bars

The busiest of them sits on Great Eastern Street at EC2A 3HU with a lobby that stays busy past midnight. A low lit one is on Willow Street, EC2A 4BH. Small fast rooms stand at EC2A 3ET, and a fourth faces Finsbury Square at EC2A 1DX. On the E1 side, one more is at E1 6JQ near the market.

None is a partner of the desk and none is ever contacted. Shoreditch lobbies are the easiest arrivals in London simply because nobody looks up: the room is full of people meeting people at an hour when the rest of the city is asleep.

Getting here late

Shoreditch High Street, on the London Overground, is about two minutes from the Great Eastern Street hotels. Old Street, on the Northern line, is roughly eight minutes. Liverpool Street, with the Central, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan and Elizabeth lines and national rail, is about nine minutes on foot and is the route most companions use after the Overground thins out.

From the west of town, expect thirty five to fifty minutes door to door on a weekday night, and a little more at weekends when the roads around Old Street are busy. The desk writes the window into the confirmation and tells you if the later end is the likely one.

The shape of a late evening here

It rarely starts with dinner. More often a drink somewhere on Redchurch Street at ten, a second room found on the way, live music upstairs that neither of you planned for, and a walk back through streets that are still fully awake at one in the morning. Shoreditch rewards an evening that is allowed to wander, which is also why the desk suggests booking a little longer than you think you need.

Two hours at £500 is the shortest length that makes sense once a night has already begun. Three at £700 is the common one. An overnight at £1,800 runs ten hours and is worth asking about a day ahead if the whole night is the idea.

Who writes from EC2A and E1

People whose evening has already started. That is the single biggest group and it shapes everything: the messages are short, the decisions are quick, and what they need from the desk is a name and a time rather than a conversation. After them, guests staying in the area for a few nights who picked Shoreditch over the City on purpose, and residents in the converted warehouses who simply live here.

Very little of this postcode's traffic arrives before eight in the evening, and almost none of it before six.

Molly and Tiffany

Molly has wavy dark hair, an easy laugh and no patience at all for a stuffy room, which makes her the obvious fit for a courtyard table, live music and the back streets afterwards. Tiffany is fine boned and dark haired and considerably tougher than she looks; she likes the vaulted rooms, the market walks, and an argument conducted in good humour.

Both live in Soho and come east, so the desk writes a realistic window rather than an optimistic one. The rest of the register reaches Shoreditch on the same fees, travel included.

What lies next to it

South, across the old boundary, the towers begin and the Square Mile keeps entirely different hours. Continue south west and you reach the junction the desk covers as Bank and Monument, about fifteen minutes on foot. Liverpool Street sits at the southern corner, Aldgate to the south east, and Hoxton and Bethnal Green run away to the north and east.