TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/988448
It is funny what five days at Ascot can do to you. Haute couture, high society and higher heels leave you trudging away as footsore and broke as a refugee. And the itinerary we have suggested may well have added a notch to your belt, even as your wallet requires you to tighten it. But here's the winning post. You'll probably be back at work on Monday, after all. So let's just finish up with the scent of flowers drifting through the windows of THE LADBROKE ARMS, conveniently sited on the west of downtown at 54 Ladbroke Road, W11 3NW. Convenient, in being on the way back into town from Ascot. In fact, the only reason it isn't suggested for Tuesday evening is that you'd just spend the whole week here. You're only a furlong or so from trendy Notting Hill, and yards from Holland Park and the sumptuous tree-lined avenue that rises towards downtown like a promise that is impossible to keep. Like so much of London, it's a parish that makes neighbours of prince and pauper: the charred spectre of Grenfell Tower—a block of council flats destroyed by fire in 2017; in political terms, the most literally incendiary of disasters—stares accusingly down at the stucco and porticos of some of Europe's most expensive real estate. But if conscience permits you, this has always been a gem of a place to idle away a summer evening. Saturday