Museum quarter escorts: a floor plan from Exhibition Road to Thurloe Square

Exhibition Road is the spine. It runs north from the station past the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the V&A to Kensington Gore, paved kerb to kerb so that walkers and taxis share one surface. Look closely at the V&A's Exhibition Road screen and the stone is pitted, wartime bomb damage the museum chose to keep, with a small inscription saying why. The district is full of details like that, and most visitors walk straight past them.

Either side of the road the residential streets take over. Thurloe Square looks towards the V&A over its private garden. Onslow Square spreads its white stucco south of the station, Pelham Crescent curves along the Fulham Road, and Queen's Gate climbs in tall terraces towards the park. Bute Street, a short lane of bakeries and bookshops beside the station, is where the quarter buys its morning bread.

Summer belongs to the Proms, which fill the Royal Albert Hall almost nightly from July into September. The rest of the year the rhythm is steadier: a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society, an after-hours evening in one of the museums, supper, then home.

Guests here usually have a reason for being in the district: a concert or a run of them, a conference at Imperial College, a week of museums promised for years. Many are long-stay visitors in serviced apartments off Cromwell Road, and some are garden square residents who prefer to entertain at home.

What they share is a preference for conversation over spectacle. The companions who suit South Kensington best are good listeners with opinions of their own, at ease in a concert hall, a quiet hotel lounge or a dining room where the waiter knows the regulars by name.

Most hotel bookings in the district arrive at one of three doors. They are listed the way a label lists a location, as plain fact. No hotel named here is a partner of the agency or is expected to do more than receive a guest's visitor.

SW7 3ER stands on Harrington Road, two minutes from the station, bright and good humoured inside, its decoration borrowing freely from the collections up the road. SW7 5BB sits further north on Hyde Park Gate, looking straight across to Kensington Gardens, darker and more dramatic in its interiors. SW7 5LR fills a run of stucco townhouses on Queen's Gate, where the lounges are deep and the fires are lit through winter.

Companions also walk into SW7 3EG on Sumner Place, the house on Cromwell Place and SW7 5EX on Queen's Gate, and into the serviced apartment buildings and mansion flats nearby. For a residence the desk needs the building and the flat number; for a hotel, the room.

South Kensington station, where the Circle, District and Piccadilly lines meet, sits about 1 minute from the heart of the district. From its ticket hall a long Victorian pedestrian tunnel runs under Exhibition Road to the museum entrances, worth knowing on a wet night. Gloucester Road, on the same three lines, is about 6 minutes' walk west.

The Piccadilly line matters for travellers. It runs from Heathrow to both stations without a change, which is why so many SW7 bookings begin with a guest who landed that afternoon.

One message on WhatsApp or Telegram carries everything: her name, the hour, how long, and where. A person at the desk answers within 10 to 15 minutes, day or night. Before anyone sets out, the desk checks the name you are booking under against the hotel and its room number, or, for a private address, against the building and flat.

Payment: to her, in person, as soon as she walks in. Confirmation: the desk replies in writing once the name, hotel and room match. Overnights, events and travel: requested a day or two before, giving her time to clear the diary. Set out like that it reads formally; in practice it protects the guest and the companion equally.

Count on roughly an hour between the desk's confirmation and her knock at a South Kensington door, and longer when Cromwell Road jams at rush hour or on a Friday night; the exact time reaches your WhatsApp or Telegram chat once she has set off. SW7 sits in Zone 1, so no fare is added for the ride over, and cancelling is free up to three hours before the start.

Exhibit one, seven o'clock: a drink in the lounge at SW7 3ER, or in your own hotel, while the museum crowd thins outside. Exhibit two, half past seven: the evening concert at the Royal Albert Hall, or, on the last Friday of most months, a Friday Late at the V&A, the galleries open with music and talks.

Exhibit three, towards ten: south down Exhibition Road with the facades floodlit, across Cromwell Road to Brompton Cross, where the tiled front of Michelin House presides over a cluster of late dining rooms. Exhibit four: the short way back to the hotel, past the pale curve of Pelham Crescent.

That shape fits the dinner date, four hours for £900. A concert with a drink either side suits three hours at £700, and two hours at £500 covers supper and the walk home.

Three companions give South Kensington as their home district. Danielle, in her late twenties, is the quiet one: an attentive listener with a long memory for films and a taste for the galleries that open late. Milena, in her mid twenties, is direct, glamorous and ruthless on a tennis court, the right choice for a guest who enjoys a straight answer. Thea, also in her late twenties, is the easiest company imaginable after a long flight, warm and funny, happiest on a bicycle or at a good counter.

All three can be booked for the district at short notice, and every other companion in the catalogue covers SW7 on exactly the same terms.

West along Cromwell Road is Gloucester Road, the district's hotel corridor. North and west, up Queen's Gate, lies Kensington and its palace. South, Sydney Street leads down to Chelsea, and a short taxi ride south east brings you to Sloane Square and its theatre. The SW7 postcode guide shows how the neighbouring codes fit together.