Mens Haircut Paddington: The Honest Answer

Here is the honest answer to a mens haircut Paddington search: we are Golden Scissors, 354 Harrow Road, and we are not next to the station. We are about 2.2 kilometres away, which is a 28 minute walk, one stop on the Bakerloo plus twelve minutes on foot, or a short ride on the 36 bus. Thirty years on this road says the trip is worth making. Below is exactly how to make it, and what is waiting when you do.

Why a mens haircut Paddington search finds us

There are places to get your hair cut around the station, and this is not a page that runs any of them down. What we can tell you is what we are: six chairs going at once, every barber years into the trade, nobody learning on you, and a standard haircut at £15. Whether that beats what is on offer nearer the platforms, you can check for yourself in about ten seconds on your phone.

The reason we turn up when you search Paddington is geography. Harrow Road runs north-west out of the station's back yard with the canal for company, and we have been at number 354 for thirty years, cutting for the same families as the area changed around us. If you work near the station, stay near it, or pass through it twice a day, we are the local shop up the road, not a place you happen to pass on the concourse.

Three ways here from the station

One stop on the Bakerloo. Paddington to Warwick Avenue is a single stop. From the top of the steps it is about 930 metres to the shop, a twelve minute walk, and the two routes from there are written up properly in our Warwick Avenue guide, including the one that goes past the narrowboats. Door to door you are looking at roughly twenty minutes.

The towpath. Come out of the station on the canal side at Paddington Basin and follow the water. The towpath takes you through Little Venice, where the Regent's Canal meets the Grand Union, and the canal then keeps loose company with Harrow Road for most of the rest of the way. About 28 minutes all in, flat from start to finish, and comfortably the best of the three options on a dry day.

The 36 bus. It picks up near the station and runs along Harrow Road towards Queen's Park, with stops a couple of minutes from our door. Take it if it is raining, if you have luggage, or if a half hour walk sounds like a chore rather than a bonus. It is also the sensible way back when you have somewhere to be.

We would not pretend any of this makes us convenient for a man with eight spare minutes between trains. It makes us a short, easy trip for a man with a morning or an afternoon, which around Paddington is more people than you would think.

What is waiting at the other end

A working shop, not a waiting room. Six chairs means six cuts happening at once, and it means a booked slot starts when it says it will.

The standard haircut is £15 and holds a chair for 30 minutes. A skin fade or a taper fade is £17 in a 40 minute slot, because a fade is slower work done properly. A crew cut is £10 and you are out in twenty. Add a beard trim to any haircut and the trim drops from £11 to £9, so a cut and a beard together bills £24. The full list is on the services page, and the price on the page is the price at the till.

None of the six of us is new to this. Every barber here has years behind the chair, which matters more than usual when you have travelled to sit in it. A cut that goes wrong two minutes from your office is an annoyance. A cut that goes wrong 2.2 kilometres from your train is a story you tell for the wrong reasons, and we have no interest in being that story.

Timing it, with or without a train to catch

We are open 9:00am to 7:30pm Monday to Saturday and 10:00am to 6:30pm on Sunday. With the bus or the Bakerloo underneath you, a £15 haircut is comfortably done inside an hour and a half door to door, and usually well under.

Two honest warnings. Saturday from late morning is the busiest the shop gets, and the last stretch of a weekday afternoon fills with men coming off shift. A walk-in then can mean a wait. From round the corner a wait costs you nothing much. From Paddington it costs you the whole round trip, which is why our guide to chancing a walk-in tells people coming from your direction to sort it before setting off. Two minutes on the booking page turns the trip into a certainty.

The quietest hour of the whole week is nine o'clock on a weekday morning. If your diary can put a haircut there, put it there.

If the train is booked and the clock is real

Tell whoever is cutting you when you sit down. A 30 minute slot here is a genuine 30 minutes, because the next man is booked into the chair behind you, so we already cut to the clock without rushing anybody's head. Say "I am on the 2:40 from Paddington" and we will work backwards from it with you: which cut fits, whether the beard happens today or next time, and when you need to be back on the 36.

You will make the train. The haircut will outlast the trip.