Location Reviews

Marylebone, centered around "Marylebone Village", is a central London area popular amongst tourists from overseas and also Londoners out to enjoy an evening out or a Saturday of shopping. Tourists visit for attractions such as Madame Tussauds and the Wallace Collection. Believe it or not you'll also sometimes see people queueing outside the Sherlock Holmes Museum (he lived on Baker Street...). Well worth wandering up that way for a pint at the Volunteer pub ( www.thevolunteernw1.co.uk ). Marylebone is an area that's easy to get to with a selection of tube stations located in and around and also Marylebone Train station, which is served by Chiltern trains from North-West London and Buckinghamshire. Despite it being touristy, there are some other decent pubs to be enjoyed such as the Prince Regent on Marylebone High Street or the Kings Head on Westmoreland Street which can actually feel nice and quiet and out of the way. Yes, it's upmarket central London and a pint, or a meal, will cost you a bit. I imagine living there wouldn't be cheap, in fact it's probably out of the question for the vast majority of us. Even studio flats here go for £600k+ and if you fancy one of those pretty houses on somewhere like Devonshire Mews then you'd likely have to come up with a few million. Being so central it's pretty built up and some might find it a bit claustrophobic. It's not the greenest of areas in itself but it is right by Regent's Park, which is pretty wonderful, with it's wide open spaces, boating lake and the beautiful inner circle with the amazing Regent's Park open are theatre. Some people are suprised to discover that the area actually has a pretty high crime rate. In fact for 2021 Westminser borough had the highest number of recorded crimes of any London borough, by quite some margin. If you're interested, stats from the Met Police can be viewed here ( www.police.uk/pu/your-area/metropolitan-police-service/performance/compare-your-area ). You can see that, almost regardless of the type of crime, Westminster had the highest number recorded of any borough. This is true despite Westminster being a smaller area and having a smaller population than most other London boroughs. Marylebone might not be the main hotspot within Westminster for crime - you're looking at Oxford Circus, Soho, Piccadilly - but it does seem to have it's share, at least according to the stats on police recorded crimes. It's funny though, I can't say I've ever felt unsafe walking around the area, even late at night. There are other areas of London, not to name names, where I wouldn't be able to say the same. The starkest figures for Westminster, relative to other boroughs, seem to be for "Theft from the person", which is perhaps plausible. If someone is to be pickpocketed, is it most likely to be in central London shopping areas? Probably. But Westminster is also far worse than elsewhere for robbery, which I can't say I would have guessed at. I wonder whether it's more likely to be reported by tourists who can make a claim on their travel insurance, whereas perhaps Londoners in more residential locations just don't bother.