Barber Near Warwick Avenue: A Local Guide

If you have searched for a barber near Warwick Avenue, here is the practical answer. Golden Scissors is at 354 Harrow Road, and from the station that is about a twelve minute walk: up the steps, north along Warwick Avenue, left onto Sutherland Avenue, and Harrow Road is at the bottom of it. A shade under a kilometre. That is further than "a few minutes from the tube" suggests, so what follows is the honest version, including the stop that is actually closer.

The walk from Warwick Avenue to the barber's chair

Warwick Avenue has no station building. You come up two sets of steps straight onto the pavement at the junction of Warwick Avenue, Warrington Crescent and Clifton Gardens, and that is the whole station. It opened in January 1915 and it never grew a roof. You are one stop up from Paddington and one stop down from Maida Vale, and it is escalators rather than a lift once you are through the barrier, which is worth knowing if you are carrying anything.

From there you have two routes, and they are not the same walk.

The quick one. North up Warwick Avenue, left onto Sutherland Avenue, then follow it down until it runs into Harrow Road. Around 930 metres, about twelve minutes at a normal pace, nothing much to look at. Take it if you are late.

The one worth taking. Go the other way first, down to the water at Blomfield Road. Little Venice is right there, the narrowboats are moored along the bank, and you can walk west with the canal beside you before cutting up to Harrow Road. It adds about seventy metres and a minute. On a dry day that is not really a decision.

Either route finishes the same way. We are at 354, six chairs going at once, and in this weather the door is usually propped open.

The station nobody mentions is closer

We have been saying "nearest tube Warwick Avenue" for years. Measured properly that is not quite right, and you may as well have the real numbers.

• Westbourne Park (Hammersmith & City, Circle): about 770 metres, ten minutes
• Warwick Avenue (Bakerloo): about 930 metres, twelve minutes
• Maida Vale (Bakerloo): about 1.3 kilometres, sixteen minutes
• Paddington: about 1.75 kilometres, twenty minutes

So Warwick Avenue is the nearest Bakerloo stop and the better walk of the two, and it is the one to use coming down from Kilburn or up from town. If you are already on the Hammersmith & City or the Circle, get off at Westbourne Park instead and save yourself a couple of minutes.

None of this matters much if you are local and walking anyway. It matters if you are coming from Harlesden or Elephant and Castle with twenty minutes to spare, which is most of the people who ask us.

When to turn up

We are open 9:00am to 7:30pm Monday to Saturday, and 10:00am to 6:30pm on Sunday.

Six chairs run at once, so a walk-in usually gets seen. There are two stretches where that stops being reliable: Saturday from about eleven onwards, and the last two hours of any weekday, when people arrive straight off work. Turn up then without a booking and you will be sitting for a while.

The first hour of a weekday morning is the quietest the shop ever is. If you can move a haircut to nine o'clock, move it.

One date for the diary. Carnival is Sunday 30 and Monday 31 August this year, with Panorama on the Saturday night. Getting around this corner of West London is slower all weekend, and the stations along the route change their arrangements over the bank holiday, so check TfL before you set off. If you want to be sharp for it, come the week before rather than the morning of. Booking a slot is the sensible move for that weekend either way.

What a cut costs at this end of W9

The list runs from £10 to £18 and it is what you pay at the till:

• Crew cut, £10 in a 20 minute slot
• Over-60s haircut, £10 in 30 minutes
• Short back and sides, £14 in 20 minutes
• Haircut, £15 in 30 minutes
• Skin fade or taper fade, £17 in 40 minutes, because a fade is slower work
• Wash and cut, £18 in 40 minutes
• Head shave, £18 in 30 minutes
• Beard trim, £11 in 15 minutes

Prices around here spread a lot wider than that, and paying more usually buys you a longer appointment and a quieter room rather than a better fade. The full price list has everything on it. If you want the criteria for judging any shop before you sit in the chair, we set those out on our page about choosing a barber in Maida Vale.

What to say when you get here

The walk is the easy part. The bit that decides whether you like the haircut is the thirty seconds after you sit down.

Bring a photo if you have one, and know two things before you arrive: how short you want the sides, and whether you want the back squared off or left to follow your natural hairline. Those two answers cover most of the ground. Everything else we can work out between us once you are in the chair. If you want to get better at asking, what to say to your barber goes through it properly.

And if you are coming down from Warwick Avenue in the rain, take the Sutherland Avenue route. The canal is lovely in July and a wind tunnel in February.