Escorts in Earls Court: a floor plan from the white terraces to West Brompton

The residential heart is a sequence of garden squares: Earls Court Square, Nevern Square, Bramham Gardens and Barkston Gardens, each ringed by tall terraces with pillared porches. Courtfield Gardens, nearer Gloucester Road, is the most polished of them. Outside the station on Earls Court Road stands a blue police box, a replica that science fiction fans travel to photograph and locals have long since stopped noticing.

To the south, Brompton Cemetery stretches towards Fulham, a long Victorian landscape of colonnades, catacombs and mature trees that makes one of London's calmest walks by day. On Old Brompton Road, the Troubadour has run as a café and music room since the 1950s, and its small basement stage has hosted more famous names than its size suggests. The vast exhibition halls that once made Earls Court famous have gone, and a new neighbourhood is slowly rising in their place.

Earls Court has more small hotels than grand ones, and several are very good. They appear here as places, not partners; no hotel in SW5 has any arrangement with the agency.

One hotel sits on Templeton Place, a quiet side street a few minutes from the station. Another is on Courtfield Gardens, a modern, compact hotel inside a classic terrace. A third occupies a line of houses on Barkston Gardens, facing the square. A fourth, on Cromwell Road, is a boutique hotel with a more individual style than its busy address suggests.

Most other Earls Court bookings go to flats in the converted terraces, where one front door can serve a dozen bells. For these, send the flat number and the floor along with the building.

From the middle of the district, Earl's Court station (District and Piccadilly lines) is about 1 minute away, with entrances on both Earls Court Road and Warwick Road. West Brompton, on the District line and the London Overground, is about 7 minutes' walk south, near the cemetery's northern gate. Earl's Court sits on the boundary of Zones 1 and 2, and every address in the district falls inside the zones where travel is already in the fee.

Like Gloucester Road, Earl's Court is on the direct Piccadilly line from Heathrow, a sensible base for a traveller who wants the airport line close by without giving up central London.

Send the companion's name, the hour, the duration and the address by WhatsApp or Telegram. Within 10 to 15 minutes the desk replies, and before anyone travels it confirms the name on the booking together with the hotel room, or the building and flat. After that, an hour or so is the usual wait for her, longer on a Friday night or when Earls Court Road is choked with traffic, and the desk tells you in the chat the moment she leaves.

For SW5 the money is simple to state. Every booking, standard or overnight, is paid to her personally on arrival. Overnights, events and travel want a little more warning. Start times carry a 15 minute grace period.

Earls Court suits guests who like a neighbourhood with a pulse. Visitors at the boutique hotels for a trade fair at Olympia, one stop away. Travellers who chose the Piccadilly line for the airport and the terraces for their character. People renting a flat for a month who want someone who knows where the good tables are.

It is a less formal district than South Kensington, and bookings here are often a little more spontaneous: a message at nine, a knock at ten.

Eight o'clock: a cocktail in a basement speakeasy on Earls Court Road, the kind with a door you have to know about. Nine: dinner along Old Brompton Road, where small restaurants line the stretch between the station and the cemetery. Half past ten: a late set downstairs at the Troubadour if the programme suits, or back to the hotel through Nevern Square while the terraces are still lit.

Two and a half hours of that sits comfortably inside three hours at £700. The dinner date, four hours for £900, leaves room for a slower finish. A drink and conversation where you are staying is one hour at £250.

No companion lists Earls Court as her home district. The closest are the Chelsea three, Cindy, Michelle and Stacy, a short ride south east, and the South Kensington three, Danielle, Milena and Thea, two stops east. Any of the six reaches SW5 about an hour after confirmation, and everyone in the gallery covers the district on the same fees.

One stop east is Gloucester Road, and one further is South Kensington. North up Earls Court Road the terraces give way to High Street Kensington. South east, past the cemetery and along the Fulham Road, is Chelsea. The SW7 postcode guide also takes in SW5.