Wapping escorts in E1W, along the warehouse canyon of the High Street

Residents, mostly, in the warehouse conversions and the newer blocks around Shadwell Basin and St Katharine Docks. They work in the City a few minutes west or at the Wharf a few minutes east, and they have chosen a street where nobody looks twice at a visitor. The rest are hotel guests at the Tower end who want an evening further from the crowds, and a river walk that most visitors never find.

Many keep long, irregular hours and write late, often after ten. A good number simply want company for a walk along the water and a drink they did not have to arrange themselves.

Wapping has no big hotel of its own; the nearest cluster around the Tower. The Tower Hotel stands at the edge of St Katharine Docks with rooms facing the water. The Four Seasons at Ten Trinity Square fills the old Port of London Authority building on Tower Hill, and citizenM Tower of London is a few doors along the same square. Leman Locke, an aparthotel in Aldgate, suits guests on a longer stay who want to cook and come and go as they please.

We walk into all four as visitors, never as anyone's partner. A private loft is arranged in just the same way.

21:00. She rings the entry phone of a loft on Wapping High Street, gives her first name and climbs to the fourth floor. 21:15. A drink by the old loading doors, which now open onto a balcony over the river. 22:00. A walk east along the street to a riverside tavern on Wapping Wall that claims a history back to Tudor times, and a glass on its terrace above the water. 23:10. Back to the loft for coffee and the last of the conversation. 00:00. Three hours, £700, no travel charge.

The street was built for cargo. Tea, spices and timber came off the ships at the wharves here, and several warehouses still carry the painted names of their wharves. Close by, at Execution Dock, the Admiralty once hanged pirates at the tide line, and Wapping Old Stairs still lead down to the foreshore beside an old riverside pub. Tobacco Dock, the great Georgian warehouse on the northern side, hosts large events on certain weekends. Otherwise the street is so quiet that a car door echoes along it, which is exactly why people live here.

Two minutes from the High Street, Wapping station sits on the London Overground; its trains run through the tunnel the Brunels, father and son, drove under the river and opened in 1843. Shadwell, served by the Overground and the DLR, is six minutes north. The same Overground line runs north to Shoreditch and south under the river to Canada Water, where the Jubilee line connects to the Wharf. Tower Hill, for the Circle and District lines, is fifteen minutes' walk west past St Katharine Docks.

Most companions come by car along The Highway, fifteen to twenty-five minutes from the West End once the evening traffic eases. Allow up to an hour from confirmation; Wapping is Zone 2, and travel is included.

Molly comes from Soho for the late hours and knows what is on at Tobacco Dock before you ask. Patricia, from Belgravia, favours the old tavern on Wapping Wall and a quiet window. Bianka travels from Knightsbridge and likes to begin among the moored yachts of St Katharine's.

Tower Bridge is ten minutes' walk west, past the marina. Limehouse is the next stretch of river to the east, and beyond it Canary Wharf is a short drive through the Limehouse Link.