The Pimlico Edit: Your Honest Guide to London’s Most Underrated Neighbourhood

By Nestor Stay · 5 min read · The Regency, SW1P

Whether you’re visiting or staying, there’s more things to do in Pimlico London than most people realise.

Pimlico doesn’t have a hashtag. It doesn’t have a viral food market or a street that gets photographed

four hundred times a day. What it does have is Georgian streets so handsome they stop you mid-stride,

one of the world’s great art galleries sitting quietly by the river, and the kind of neighbourhood that

Londoners tend to keep to themselves. Welcome to the home of The Regency.

CULTURE

Staying in Pimlico puts you within walking distance of two of London’s most rewarding cultural landmarks — no tube, no queue, no tourist bus required. Tate Britain, home to the UK’s greatest collection of      

British art, is a 10-minute walk from The Regency along Millbank. It is consistently less crowded than the Tate Modern despite holding a collection that is, by any measure, its equal: Turner, Hockney, Hogarth,   

Bacon, and Freud — all in a building you can walk straight into on a weekday morning. Westminster, with the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, is 20 minutes on foot along the river — one of the better urban walks in central London, and genuinely more enjoyable than the tourist bus that crawls the same route for £35.

SHOPPIN AND WANDERING

Pimlico is quietly one of the best-positioned neighbourhoods in London for shopping — and almost no one talks about it. Pimlico Road, right on your doorstep, is one of the city’s finest streets for antiques and independent interiors boutiques, with not a chain in sight. King’s Road in Chelsea and Sloane Street are both 15 minutes on foot — no tube, no faff. Other visitors are spending £4 and 25 minutes getting to places you can walk to before breakfast.

GREEN SPACES

Pimlico is surrounded by green space that most visitors to London never find — because they’re staying somewhere else. St James’s Park, widely considered the most beautiful of London’s royal parks, is 20 minutes on foot from The Regency. The grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, one of central London’s best-kept secrets, are even closer. Neither requires a ticket, a booking, or a plan.

GETTING AROUND

The Regency is one of the best-connected addresses in central London — without feeling like it. Pimlico station (Victoria line) is a 5-minute walk. Victoria station, one of London’s major transport hubs, is 10 minutes on foot, giving you direct access to Gatwick, National Rail, and multiple tube lines. For something different, the Thames Clipper river bus from Millbank Pier connects you to the City, Canary Wharf, and  Greenwich entirely above ground. Most central London destinations are 15–25 minutes away.

Ready to experience Pimlico for yourself? Book The Regency — and arrive somewhere worth the detour.