Marylebone Arrivals: Village Streets and Harley Street

Three Marylebones in one postcode

Most visitors think of Marylebone as the stretch of high street between Paddington Street and Wigmore Street, but the district is really three overlapping places. There is the shopping village around the High Street and Marylebone Lane, the consulting-room grid running from Harley Street across Wimpole Street and Devonshire Place, and the formal edge of squares and terraces facing Regent's Park. A car behaves quite differently in each, and knowing which one your address sits in is the first useful piece of information.

The High Street and Marylebone Lane

Marylebone High Street is narrow for the volume it carries, and its kerb is largely taken up by pay-and-display bays, loading and a bus route. Marylebone Lane, which curves behind it following the line of a buried river, is narrower still and effectively single file wherever vehicles are parked. Neither is a place to hold position. A brief stop at the door is workable; anything longer means the car moves to a side street and returns when you message.

Moxon Street, Bulstrode Street, Cramer Street and Aybrook Street all sit within a minute or two of the main frontage and give a driver somewhere legitimate to stand. Saturdays are markedly busier here than weekdays, and the produce market behind the High Street adds pedestrian pressure on Sunday mornings.

Consulting rooms and the medical grid

Harley Street, Wimpole Street, Weymouth Street, Devonshire Place and New Cavendish Street form a tight rectangle of Georgian townhouses converted to clinics. Almost none of them has a forecourt or a private entrance. Kerb space is permit and pay-bay controlled, turnover is constant, and the single yellow lines carry restriction plates that vary street by street rather than following one district-wide pattern.

For an appointment, the practical arrangement is a set-down directly at the door followed by the car waiting elsewhere until you are finished. Because clinic appointments frequently overrun, a firm collection time is less useful than an agreed street plus a message when you are on your way out. Cavendish Square has an underground car park that gives a vehicle somewhere to sit properly rather than circulating.

• Give the street number and the nearest cross street, since the terraces look identical
• Say whether the entrance is on the main street or around a corner in a side turning
• Expect a set-down rather than a wait outside the door

Marylebone Road and the park terraces

Marylebone Road is part of the inner ring and is managed as a red route, so it offers no stopping at all during controlled hours. Addresses that front it are reached from behind wherever a service road or rear entrance exists. North of it, the Nash terraces around Park Crescent, Park Square and York Terrace have their own service roads and gated forecourts, which are private and controlled by the buildings rather than by the borough.

Getting in and out

Marylebone is bounded by Marylebone Road to the north, Oxford Street to the south, Edgware Road to the west and Great Portland Street to the east, and the internal streets are a patchwork of one-way runs. Approaching from the correct side saves more time than any clever shortcut. From the west, Seymour Place and Gloucester Place give a clean run in. From the east, Great Portland Street and Bolsover Street work better than trying to cut across Regent Street.

The station adds its own rhythm. Marylebone station is small by London standards, but its forecourt fills with taxis and drop-offs around departure times, so an address near Melcombe Place is easier to reach from the Balcombe Street side than through the station approach itself.

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