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TSR Wiki > University > Student Life > Accommodation > Cardiff Accommodation

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Contents 1 Cardiff Accommodation 1.1 Aberdare Hall 1.2 Senghennydd Court 1.3 Senghennydd Hall 1.4 Talybont 1.4.1 Talybont North 1.4.2 Talybont South 1.4.3 Talybont Court 1.5 University Hall 1.5.1 Nevern 1.5.2 Dwyfor 1.5.3 Tower 1.5.4 Birchwood 1.5.5 Garden Wing 1.5.6 East Wing and Ty Gwyn 1.5.7 Coachmans

Cardiff Accommodation

A variety of accommodation is available at Cardiff University at different prices. The majority is self-catered, but some also offer part-catered or catered. Similarly, some offer en-suite facilities, whereas others have shared bathrooms.

Aberdare Hall

Aberdare Hall is the university’s only all-female hall of residence. About 125 students live there and come from a variety of backgrounds and nationalities.

It’s situated very, very close to the main university campus, next to the Music Department and near the humanities and law buildings, etc. The Students’ Union is just a short walk away, as is the city centre. Useful for those who just want to roll out of bed in the morning.

Aberdare has its own library and common rooms. There is also a reception, The Lodge, where visitors must sign in and out.

Senghennydd Court

Senghennydd Court is a self-catered accommodation close to the main campus area and Students’ Union. Also very close to the town centre.

Just over 600 students live at Senghennydd Court. For undergraduates, there are ten houses which are divided into flats for five people. Each flat has a shared bathroom and kitchen/living area. All the bedrooms have internet connection points.

There is an evening meal option available at the Trevithick Restaurant, but it isn’t known for being particularly good!

There are a few Welsh-speaking flats.

Affectionately known to some people as ‘Senghetto’, just as Talybont North is sometimes known as Talybronx.

Senghennydd Hall

Senghennydd Hall is a part-catered accommodation close to the main campus area and Students’ Union. It is also very close to the town centre.

There are just over 100 rooms in this hall so there is a real community feel. If you do feel the need to meet more people, Senghennydd court is very close by with the hundreds of people there!

Each flat has a kitchen/living area. All the bedrooms are ensuite (with proper showers!) and have internet connection points. The rooms are a good size although there isn't much storage space. The laundrette is across the road at Senghennydd Court.

The evening meal is at the Trevithick Restaurant, but it isn’t known for being particularly good! They provide evening meals Monday to Friday during term time (served between 4.30 and 7pm)

Talybont

There are three residences at Talybont, which is the largest of the university’s self-catered accommodation. Talybont North, Talybont South and Talybont Court. Talybont Court is the newest residence and opened in September 2005.

All rooms are single occupancy and have en-suite facilities. As of September 2006, all rooms have internet connections.

Talybont has its own bar, the Talybont Social. On site, there are also laundrettes, a shop and sports facilities.

Talybont is close to a large Tesco Extra; the nearest residence to it is Talybont North. Close to Tesco, there is also a drive-through McDonalds.

Talybont North

Talybont North consists of 15 houses. These houses are split into flats, each with 6 bedrooms. All bedrooms have en-suite facilities and network connection point. Each flat has a communal kitchen/dining room.

The bedrooms in houses A-R are slightly smaller than those in S-Y. Therefore, they are slightly cheaper. Room 6 in houses A-R is offered at a further discounted rate as the rooms are a smaller, irregular shape.

Each room contains ample storage space - desk, lots of shelving, drawers under the bed and a wardrobe with shelves in too. Hangers aren't provided for you and you have to bring your own duvet and pillows(if you want more than one). Your room has a large notice board as well, but bring drawing pins!

The bathroom is more of a 'pod' than a proper bathroom, as you'd be expecting considering how many students have to be accommodated here. The bathroom isn't very big but contains a toilet, shower, mirror, sink and about 3 shelves for your toiletries etc with a hook on the door for towels to be hung on. The shower has isn't in a cubicle or sectioned off, but the bathroom doesn't get very wet unless you're really splashing about in there!

There's a network connection point and a cable is provided for you to connect it up to your pc/laptop. The internet's easy to get on to and doesn't take long to set up, there's normally few glitches in the first few days when they're sorting everything out and everyone's starting up but it's fine from then on.

My kitchen (House Y, first floor, flat 5) contains quite a large table, 4 chairs, 2 comfy chairs, bin, oven, freezer and fridge, microwave, extractor fan, mop and dustpan and brush and drawers and cupboards. Altogether, there's enough room for all your food, cutlery, plates etc so long as you don't come with LOADS. The fridge and freezer are smaller than those in Talybont South, although there's only 2 less people, so you can't go buying too much refrigerated/frozen stuff as you have to remember you're sharing that space with 6 people.

Each kitchen in Talybont North varies slightly, as I have friends in house V who have a slightly smaller kitchen table which is wider and know other people in different houses, e.g. M, who don't have the same type of chairs in the kitchen. But all in all, the general layout is the same.

House Y has rooms that are slightly bigger than the rest of the houses (A-R) and room 6 in House Y is the same size as any of the other rooms in the flat. I find that they're large enough, as I expected something MUCH smaller and was pleasantly surprised. :)

Each bedroom has a radiator which can be turned on/off accordingly, obviously. The heating is switched on from 1st October to 24th May from 6.30-9.30AM & 4.30-11.30PM Mon-Fri and then 7-11AM & 3PM-11.30PM Sat & Sun. There are recycling facilities on site, the sports centre (which is very cheap and covers a huge range of activities and sports) and the Talybont Social Centre which is a bar and dance floor with pool tables, quiz machines, poker table and lots of sofas and serves food at decent prices(£5 for a sunday roast, £4 for a general meal) as well as doing club nights every other week on Fridays, which are really good fun.

The Social is open from 5pm-9pm every day but opens 12pm-9pm Wed, Sat and Sun. It serves a range of foods and caters for vegetarians and vegans too. You can choose from salads, baguettes, wraps, burgers, steaks, roast dinners, a huge range of side dishes e.g. sauces, garlic bread, onion rings, pasta and the list of desserts is put up on the blackboard each day. It's a great place to start a night out or even good for just spending a quiet evening playing pool or relaxing with friends and meeting new people if you don't feel like going all out that particular night.

Every 2 weeks Daydream comes to the Social, which is a great night out with a DJ and dancing til 12.30AM. Drinks are quite cheap at the weekend but more expensive in the week. E.g. I paid £2.70 for an Archers and Lemonade last night, but Friday nights they're normally £2ish. Obviously, they're much cheaper in the Union(normally £1.25 there, ranging to £1.75 on some days). Bottles are normally £1.50-£2 and shots are about a pound. Salsa dance classes are held in the social on Mondays and are a free first lesson and then £5 for the next 5 weeks.

The only problem with Talybont is that it IS rather noisy. Students come back at all hours of the morning, although it's usually worse on weekends. Once you get used to it, it's really not that bad, but it can be annoying if you're up early the next day. That said, security always patrol the site, and you can ring them if people are being too noisy non-stop and they'll come sort it out. Laundry washing facilities are on site. It's £1.50 to wash clothes and 50p to use the tumble dryer I believe, although they're really not very good tumble driers, so most people in my flat/house have bought clothes horses and air their clothes on them with the heating on so they dry faster.

Your key opens your house door, mailbox, flat door and your room door, and if you put it in any other lock, it'll break. (or so we're told) Your room doors stay open until locked again though, although flat and house doors don't.

Ok, so on to the more important stuff!

You can have a really good night out and about 8-10 drinks (depending on what you're drinking) for £15 max. That's including buying a ticket to get into a union event, otherwise it's about £10-12, which is pretty decent, considering you'd normally spend MUCH more than that back home on a night out no doubt!

You can walk pretty much anywhere from Talybont. Tesco from Talybont North is only a 5 minute walk max (also on the way is McDonalds)and is entirely safe. There's bicycle sheds here and locks available at a discounted price from the union if you want to leave your bike outside your house. The Union is a 20-25 minute walk down a straight road, so it's not that hard to get to. Town is about 30 mins give or take, but there are bus stops all the way down the street which cost about £1-1.30 to take you to town.

The Heath Park Campus is 20-25mins from Talybont North and the other campuses that are near the union (e.g. Julian Hodge building, Music, Psychology etc) are about 20 mins as well. Bus back from the Heath Campus to Talybont North costs £1.30. All day rider tickets will take you anywhere in the city that day and cost £3,so are pretty useful if you plan on doing a lot of bus hopping some days. Buses only take exact change, so I always make sure I have a good bit of change on me every time I go out, just in case I need it.

Local chinese take-aways deliver to the gate near Tesco, opposite McDonalds. Domino's pizza deliver free to Talybont and give 20% student discount. You always get new flyers with money off and information about what's on in different places that week, which is useful.

Taxis - taxis are normally pretty expensive..but if you have to get one sometimes, then you have to get one! So here's some info - there's quite a few different taxi companies here in Cardiff. Normally I use Dragon taxis, but there's also a taxi firm called Ladybird which is female only taxis with female drivers. I haven't actually used this yet, but obviously it's a good idea for girls if they're alone and need a taxi home ASAP. (02920-750176) Taxi from the union back to Talybont is a fiver and it's about the same price to the Heath. Taxi back from town/to town is more, normally £8-10.

After having spoken to other students, it seems that Talybont has the best atmosphere out of all the accommodations. Although Senghennydd and others are closer to the union, Talybont has the sports centre on site and a bar with lots of stuff going on all the time, so you'll never be bored if you choose to stay here - be that in North, South or Court!

Talybont South

There are 27 houses in Talybont South. Flats house 4, 6 or 8 bedrooms. All bedrooms have en-suite facilities and network connection point. Each flat has a communal kitchen/dining room.

Talybont Court

Talybont Court is the newest of the Talybont accommodations. It opened in September 2005, although it wasn’t without its teething problems, including a bit of flooding.

There are 3 houses, divided into flats for 5-7 students. All bedrooms have en-suite facilities (with a PROPER shower!!) and network connection point. Each flat has a communal kitchen/dining/living room. Taly court has its own laundrette and there are lifts for when you are carrying heavy bags of shopping/moving in.

The rooms are bigger than the rest of Talybont and there is a much bigger kitchen/living room. The kitchen has a big upright fridge and a big upright freezer so there is plenty of storage space.

Court is generally not as sociable (and therefore noisy) as the rest of Talybont (the big heavy doors make it difficult to just knock on the doors of other flats as they just don't seem to hear you!) but it is in a great location. The sports facilities of Talybont are close by, as are the endless parties which go on there! In the other direction, most of the university buildings are within a 15 minute walk.

University Hall

Whatever anyone says about it, I think its a much nicer place than Taly (you'll find there's a friendly rivalry because they're the two biggest halls).

Firstly, its on top of a hill, which is a pain if you walk or cycle. There are 91 parking spaces, and you need a permit to park. There is a big, secure cycle rack too. Uni Hall is composed of lots of different buildings. All I think now have internet connections, but here's a lowdown on each of them.

Nevern

The worst of the building-breezeblock and dirty. Kitchens uncared for, furniture tatty. In dire need of a refurb. Luckily its the only bad building.

Dwyfor

Refurbed three years ago, big flats, good kitchens. Noisy stairs though, you don't want a room by the stairway. Nice en-suites though.

Tower

Refurbed last year. Good en-suites, very light because of big windows, which afford awesome views of the city, especially towards the top. I didn't see a kitchen though.

There are 9 Bedrooms on each floor and 9 Floors in total. There are two lifts; one which goes to odd-numbered floors, and another for the even-numbered ones, and one staircase. All rooms have network connection points.

Birchwood

Completely refurbed this year I hear they'll all have en-suite.

Garden Wing

Large rooms, pretty average accommodation though.

East Wing and Ty Gwyn

I didn't see a room in these but the kitchens are very large and well equipped and new.

Coachmans

Kitchens-cosy, small, large tables take up a lot of room, though they make an awesome living space.

On one side is a dining room/living area with low chairs and a big table and chairs. There is also a stand up fridge/freezer. Most people put their shared TV/Hifi/DVD player on there (a lot of flats had a TV-I took a spare one for the kitchen cos I had one in my room too).

The kitchen is utilitarian, grey, heaters work arbitrarily-off all winter on all summer. They turn on and off as they pleased and there seemed no way to turn them off. All white goods varied in age, most of ours were replaced during the year because they broke-the only thing that didn't was the fridge/freezer which was new anyway. Ovens are electric, you also get one fridge, one freezer, and the aforementioned fridge freezer. There's plenty of storage-we all had two cupboards each, and usually used one for pots, pans and crockery, and one for food.

Rooms-8 per flat, all the same (exactly the same). They're long and narrow, and next door ones mirror each other (ie my flat had the bathroom on the right, next door it was on the left). Layout in my flat was bathroom on the right, then the bed, with a shelf over the length of the bed. On the left was a huge wardrobe, then the desk, which was huge. There are six power sockets around the room. Decor is a horrible green-its dark and you need the light on pretty much at all times. However, posters greatly brighten things up. The walls around the desk and bed are made of pin-board material, so all notices and posters can be affixed with drawing pins. The light is a harsh strip light, I used some lamps dotted around the room instead. All windows open two ways-wide open and narrow. Don't push the button in! This locks it! Windows have blinds but they are a bit narrow, letting light in. There are curtain rails though and a few students brought curtains.

Bathroom-one word-tiny. About the size of two phone boxes side by side (in fact less than that). Good powerful shower, no issues with hot water, no shower curtain though. Sink, mirror, small shelf and toilet. Difficult to keep clean.

The staff are friendly and generally efficient with repairs and stuff. It took four weeks to get the broken oven replaced though, but only one for the broken freezer.

The bar is good, wide range of drinks on, all your main brands, not cheap though, certainly not as cheap as the union. £1.60-£2.50 for pints, £2 for bottles, £2.20 for double and mixer. Two bandits, quiz machine, jukebox, two pool tables. The food it sells is pretty rubbish though-you're best advised to order delivery from nearby takeaways. There are no takeaways nearby though, generally delivery from those in Penylan and Roath is free for orders over £7. I recommend Pizza Time (Crwys Road- 029 2038 8788), and to avoid City Pizza.

On site laundrette has eight machines and eight dryers and is most busy at weekends. I used it after midnight because you'd never have to queue. Wash £1.50, dryer 50p per half hour. Dryers are inefficient and need replacing though.

OK off site-free buses run to the campus hourly once lectures start, dropping off at Taly, Aberconway, Union, and engineering buildings. They will not drop anywhere else, even if you ask nicely, which is a pain because they run along the main shopping street in Roath (Albany Road).

The public bus to town is the 52/52A, and from town goes towards Fishguard Road, or Cyncoed. It was £1 to town and 70p to Albany Road, but no doubt prices will have gone up over the summer. They only accept exact change, and don't give change, so BE PREPARED.

Shopping: local supermarket is Tesco Metro on Albany Road, which I found was more than adequate. Next door was an Iceland and a greengrocers too. The bus stop is right outside Tesco so usually I'd walk there and get the bus back. There is also a Lidl by the campus which is mega cheap. If you drive there's a huge Tesco Extra which sells EVERYTHING by Talybont. It's about five mins drive from Uni Hall.

On Albany Road there are: two video rentals, lots a takeaways, a woolies, several banks so you'll be ok. Albany Road is ten minutes walk from Uni Hall. The nearest cashpoint to Uni Hall is at Barclays on Wellfield Road, which is just off Albany Road. The nearest shop to Uni Hall is the Lady Mary Stores, which sells a lot of stuff-newspapers, milk, booze. Ian and Chloe who work their are really friendly and cool. To get to the Lady Mary exit Uni Hall by the back gate, turn right down Brandreth Road, and the shop is at the bottom of the Hill. You'll pass the nearest post box here too.

When you go they'll ask you to join a surgery. I joined Penylan surgery because I heard its better than Roath House. I saw two doctors during the year and they were both awesome, friendly people. Getting an appointment is a pain-eleven days for non-urgent, but if you phone early you can get same day for an urgent appointment.

Near to Uni Hall is Roath Park, which is nice for footy and rugby and has a good lake.

Last but not least, don't forget to make friends with Bob (Roberta) the Cat, who will be seen begging for food and mewing around Uni Hall. She's initially very shy, but will come if you offer her food.