Look across the royal enclosure, crenelated
by row after row of top hats: it almost evokes the
crowded chimneys of Victorian London. And all those
lovely dresses, in between, perhaps the gardens of its
ever-growing suburbs. If that seems incongruous, it's
not. For if Ascot is a definitively British experience, it is
also an unequivocally metropolitan one.
Yes, the backdrop to the racecourse is heath and forest—
but this is otherwise a commuter belt of electric gates
and exorbitant green fees. And remember that it was
precisely Ascot's proximity to the capital that harnessed
the royal meeting to the London "season", much like
the Henley Regatta or lawn tennis at Wimbledon. To
be honest, since the advent of the railway nobody with
a cosmopolitan corpuscle in his or her veins—unless
happening to have an invitation to Windsor Castle—has
sought accommodation for Ascot anywhere other than in
town.
Above all for the overseas visitor, then, there is no
better way to complement an afternoon of tradition and
pageantry, at the races, than by an evening exploring
21st Century London.
