Holly grove at Queens??

Which building is it?

I stayed in Holly Grove 2 2007-2008 and I loved every minute. Granted compared to the other blocks [Ash, Chestnut etc] Holly's not as good a physical building as it's the oldest blocks left, but it's in decent enough nick for it not to really bother you [or at least it didn't bother anyone when I was there].

Socially it's one of the best to be in, and here's why.

In all of the recently built blocks each floor [roughly 12 rooms to a floor, including a kitchen/common room on every floor] is self contained and locked, with only the occupants of said floor being able to unlock the door. This usually results in each floor keeping to itself, so people on say the ground floor will only know [and socialise with] people on their floor and not the rest.

With Holly Grove the layout is entirely different, with the central 'hall' being open to everyone so you'll have people walking in and out of each other's kitchens to borrow things, chat to whoever's about, drink etc. Also, there's only one common room which all floors have to share, as opposed to one per floor.

Basically, Holly Grove is better socially than the other blocks because there's more opportunities within the building itself to get to know people living on other floors. From personal experience I ended up being friendly with maybe 30 of the 40 odd people in the building, whereas most of my friends in the other blocks generally knew noone living on the other floors of their block.

And as for the physical condition of the building, they revamped Holly Grove last year so it's in decent shape now. You lucky buggers get a TV that doesn't need to have its antenna balanced on a pint glass...

Enjoy halls, you'll miss them once you're out. Also get to know Paul the night security guard [he's the one with the mustache], always handy for when you need to sneak someone in or the flat party gets a tad out of control.

Ah memories.....