Hayes UB3 and UB4: a town with a theatre, eight minutes from the terminals

Hayes and Harlington station is about five minutes on foot from the centre of town, on the Elizabeth line. Eight minutes from there to Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3, under twenty minutes in from Paddington, around thirty five from South Kensington. Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3 station is roughly thirty minutes on foot, which is a figure for planning rather than for walking.

That train is the whole case for Hayes. No shuttle to wait for, no roundabout to be stuck on, and a room that costs less than the same night on the Bath Road. Several of the women can be at a Hayes hotel inside half an hour of leaving home, so short notice works better here than almost anywhere.

The newer block at M4 junction four on the Hayes side is low key, five minutes from the motorway and ten from the central terminals, with a bar that stays open later than the road outside would suggest. Along the Bath Road at the Hayes end are the long-barred four-star with the lobby that swallows noise, the middle house of the three whose bar sits well back from the doors, and the one that hides a covered courtyard behind a frontage that gives nothing away.

The junction four room and the Bath Road row are a different evening from one another: one has a motorway behind it and the other has the approach lights. Neither is connected to this desk, and she arrives at whichever you name.

The Beck Theatre on Grange Road seats six hundred and puts on touring drama, music and a Christmas pantomime. It is a good touring house rather than a great one, which is the honest description, and a show there is the least airport like evening available anywhere on this site. Curtain is usually at half past seven, so a theatre night wants four hours rather than three.

By day the Old Vinyl Factory on Blyth Road is worth an hour: the EMI buildings where records came off the line for decades, brick and glass now, ten minutes from the airport hotels. And where the Paddington Arm leaves the Grand Union at Bulls Bridge there is a stretch of towpath that goes suddenly quiet under an iron bridge, twenty minutes each way with the aircraft stacking overhead in a line you can follow with a finger.

People who have done the arithmetic. A room in Hayes plus an eight minute train beats a room on the perimeter plus a shuttle, and it costs less. Beyond that: contractors on long jobs, guests with two or three nights and an evening of their own in the middle, and a steady number of repeat visitors who have simply decided they would rather be in a town.

Three hours is the usual length and four when there is something on at the Beck. Dinner is at the hotel, because the town is not hiding a great restaurant and you will not be told that it is.

Cindy collects old records, has firm views on which pressing is worth owning, and will walk you down Blyth Road past the factory buildings while the light holds. Nora takes guests along the towpath at Bulls Bridge and knows where every decent bench between here and Southall is. Thea builds an evening round the Beck, meets you at six and refuses to tell you anything about the play beyond who is in it.

Anyone from the hall will come out to UB3. Send Hester a hotel name and a night and she will say what is free.

South west along the Bath Road the hotel frontages begin at the strip and run to the airport fence. West one stop on the train is West Drayton, a smaller town with a high street of its own. East along the road, past Harlington, is Cranford and the Hounslow side. North of the motorway, Sipson sits behind junction four.