West Drayton UB7: a station, a high street and hotels in the fields

West Drayton station sits about three minutes on foot from the high street, on the Elizabeth line. Two stops and roughly eight minutes to the central terminals if you are travelling light, twenty five minutes in from Paddington, thirty five from Covent Garden. Iver, the next station west, is around thirty minutes on foot and of no practical use to anybody here.

That train is the reason several of the women can be in a West Drayton hotel faster than a guest clears his own baggage hall, and the reason short notice works better here than almost anywhere else on this side of London.

The four-star on Stockley Road is where the road curves away from the airport into a golf course and fields, with a car park permanently half full of hire vehicles. The house on Cherry Lane stands in a street of houses and hedges, quiet at night and a short walk from the station, though the name over its door points at the central terminals fifteen minutes away.

Over the motorway, the Junction Four hotel on Sipson Road is a West Drayton booking in everything but postcode. Both Stockley Road and Cherry Lane are about fifteen minutes by road from the central terminals, and much the same out to Terminal 5. None of the three has any arrangement with this desk.

The De Burgh Arms on the high street is an ordinary pub with a real fire in winter and no view of anything, which is the point of it. South of the town, anglers still fish the lakes off Harmondsworth Road and the pub named after them, the Angler's Retreat, has a garden and a car park and a clientele who have never once thought about a departure board.

Ten minutes from the Stockley Road hotels to either. An hour out at one of them before dinner puts real distance between the evening and the runway, which is the argument several of the women make for coming here rather than staying on the perimeter.

Stockley Park working nights, mostly. The business park is a few minutes away and the Stockley Road hotel fills with people who are here for three days of meetings and one evening of their own. Beyond that: guests on two night stays who have worked out that a town with a station beats a hotel with a shuttle, and a steady trickle of people who simply wanted to be further from the fence.

Bookings lean long, three and four hours mostly, because nothing here closes early enough to force the issue and the Elizabeth line runs late enough that nobody needs to check the time until well after eleven.

Jasmin arrives on foot from the platform with her coat still buttoned and starts at the De Burgh Arms. Milena books more evenings on Stockley Road than anywhere else and takes charge of the small decisions in the first five minutes, which most guests find a relief. Vanessa likes an hour at the anglers pub before dinner and is the quietest company on this site, in the best sense of it.

Anyone from the hall will travel here. Give Hester the hotel, the road it is on and a start time.

South through the lanes lies Harmondsworth and its barn, and beyond it Longford at the edge of Terminal 5. Over the motorway to the east, Sipson sits behind junction four. East again along the railway is Hayes, one stop and a bigger town. Iver and Yiewsley are the near neighbours with nothing much to offer an evening.