Wimbledon Chauffeur Service

There are two Wimbledons, quite distinctly. Up at the top of the hill the Village gathers round the High Street and the Common, Georgian frontages and long views; down at the bottom the town centre spreads round the Broadway and the station, busier and far more commercial. Church Road joins the two, running past the tennis grounds. Residents fill our cars for most of the year and visitors for one summer fortnight, and planning for each is nothing alike.

Through the championships, Church Road, Somerset Road and Marryat Road come under residents-only restrictions with managed set-down arrangements, and from mid-morning every street around them slows to a crawl. Away from the fortnight, Wimbledon Hill Road is the main climb and queues at school times, the Village High Street gives a car almost nowhere to stop, and the roads crossing the Common run narrow and unlit after dark. Wimbledon falls outside the congestion charge zone and inside the ultra low emission zone.

Tennis is the obvious draw, and what a chauffeur adds is worth stating plainly: a set-down as close as the restrictions permit, no hunt for a parking space at either end, and a car that comes back whenever play finishes, which on a five-set evening is an hour nobody can predict. Across the rest of the year, journeys mean village dinners, theatre in town, the golf courses on the edge of the Common, and the school and station runs.

Everything about Wimbledon's connections comes back to the A3. Heathrow generally takes 35 to 60 minutes by the A3 and M25, or by the A316. Gatwick comes to 45 to 75 minutes, which for a London address is unusually good. Central London is 30 to 60 minutes up the A24 or through Putney. Bound for the south coast, for Goodwood, or for a day at a Surrey ground, you could hardly ask for a quicker or more comfortable start.