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TSR Wiki > University > Choosing a University > A-Z of Universities > University of Manchester > Ashburne Hall with Sheavyn House

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Ashburne is a small, historic hall, located next to Owen's Park in the Fallowfield area. It was the first womens' hall of residence at the University, and the main Ashburne Hall section is still single-sex for undergraduates. It's set slightly off from Wilmslow Road and the rest of the Owen's Park campus, in its own grounds, and structured around a quadrangle with trees, flowers and benches (plus some car parking spaces). The atmosphere is quite quiet and peaceful, but the hall is no more than a drunken stumble away from OP Bar or the bright lights of Fallowfield and the Curry Mile, should that sort of thing be more your cup of tea (and lets face it, it is for most students). It's also a very friendly hall.

Ashburne

Sheavyn

There's always one option for vegetarians, sometimes two. Generally they're fairly nice (unlike some halls, you don't have to be a veggie to eat the veggie options, so I've had them a time or two), and they always do a salad option if you'd prefer (salad, roll, and cheese) - plus they have soup, bread, and a salad bar freely available in the dining hall, so no-one has to starve unless they want to :)

We have kitchenettes - they tend to be rather small, but they have each have an oven, microwave, fridge, freezer, and cupboard space. They differ throughout the building, but they've all got a basic standard - some are slightly better, but do for more people. In my first year at Ashburne, I shared mine with four other people, which I think is the lowest ratio in the hall.

Social life is what you make it really - you can sit in your room and mope, or you can get out and meet people :) The post-grads tend to organise lots of stuff, we have a Christmas dinner at Xmas, a hall ball around April/May time, and a garden party after exams. Oh, and there'll be lots organised in Fresher's Week. Typical events would be... going out for a curry, pizza and boardgames, fire and safety lecture (bit boring, but worth going). We have an "international evening" at Ashburne, but it's not really that cultural... more a chance to learn about the different cultures of the residents.

Ashburne has a relatively large percentage of returning students.

Lees and Mary Worthington (the two UG wings) are both linked, they form an L shape, and you have to pass through Mary Worthington to get to Lees.

Food varies from year to year apparently, but it won't be great - "edible" is all you can hope for. When we have formals, it's better quality though, and we occasionally get *the* most gorgeous cakes for pudding.

Ashburne provides a microwave, kettle, oven&grill (the type depends on where in the building your room is, but most are tabletop), hobs, and a fridge-freezer. Laundry has ironing boards, and reasonable irons. If you get a room on the first or ground floor, you'll probably find it convenient to take your own (the laundry's in the basement, and not my favourite place to spend an hour), but the second floor rooms tend to be the tiniest, so you might not *have* room to set an ironing board up - I didn't! Either way, it's probably better to worry about that when you come.

You can bring your own electronic stuff, like toasters but you'll have to keep it in your room, and just take it into the kitchen when you want to use it. Something like a blender might be OK to keep in a cupboard, but I never had one, so wouldn't know - I was OK to keep electronic scales in there though.

As for utensils, there isn't a lot of cupboard space, so, again, I'd leave off buying them till you come. Buy a set of cutlery, a bowl, a plate or two, and a couple of glasses/mugs (depending on what you drink most). There's a large Sainsbury's just down the road which sells some kitchen stuff, and an ironmonger-type place on the Curry Mile (bout 5 min walk in the other direction) that sells saucepans, kitchen stuff, and various other miscellaneous items you might want. And there are of course plenty of shops in the city centre ;)

Don't worry about cooking for the first week - you'll get breakfast and tea on Mon-Fri, and the JCR will almost certainly be organising an evening meal on the Sat and Sun. Just make sure you bring some cereal, or whatever) for breakfast. You won't starve though, not with a Tesco Express, Sainsbury's, Iceland, and loads of takeaway places, all within 5/10 minutes walk of Ashburne!

IIRC, LC 1 isn't very big, but it's not one of the smallest (MWC1-3 are smaller). It is in the attic, complete with slopey ceilings (but don't worry if you're tall - I've never banged my head, and I'm 6') :)

LC is top floor, on the wing that's at right angles to the rest of Ashburne, and runs along Old Hall Lane (the L stands for Lees, the name of the wing, and C means the second floor).

As for what it's like... it doesn't deserve the rap it gets for being a single-sex hall.

Food, is, erm... food. It's about par for the course - typical bland catered food... usually two meat options and one veggie, plus some form of potatoes or rice, with two veg. Dessert is a pudding, or two pieces of fruit, or one pot of yoghurt (choice of either natural yoghurt, or that Muller light stuff). There's usually soup, bread, salad stuff etc around that you can help yourself to, and ditto for squash, water, milk and hot drinks. Can't say I'm particularly enthused about it - on the up side though, it's perfectly possible to survive your entire (week)day on just the provided food, if you're cash-strapped. If you're at all keen on spicy food, a bottle of your favourite chilli sauce may well become your new best friend at mealtimes.

Social life - varies muchly from year to year. We do suffer a bit here from not having a bar, which means we lack an obvious social focal point, but the common rooms are OK (don't believe the bit in the Accommodation booklet about newspapers though... they stopped providing those the year before [i]I[/i] came, but never got round to removing it from the booklet :rolleyes: Welcome to the world of university incompetence :p:) I don't think you'll have any more difficulty than anyone else in making friends though... the thing to remember is that Freshers' Week is a bit of a false illusion... while it's a wonderful time, your closest friends are most likely to be on your corridor, your course, or people that you met in the normal day-to-day run of things. Most people I made friends with in Freshers' Week have long since become just casual aquaintances, or dropped out of my social circle all together.

Will you get a place? Well, Ashburne is traditionally undersubscribed at the start of year on the UG side, due to the all-girls thing, so I reckon it's very likely you will :)

Buses, by the way, are fantastic :D There's lots of info in the Manchester forums about them already from previous years.

The rooms with washbasins are all on the ground and first floor - some rooms on the top floor are huge, but the majority aren't. I was unfortunate enough to end up in one of the smallest rooms last year, and although it's amazing how quickly you get used to it, it was ironic considering that Ashburne rooms are mostly larger or much-larger than average (mine is about 15m^2... not bad for a single room!).

Hey Ana, do you get an iron/ironing board in Ashburne or will I have to bring my own? I iron A LOT. Also... what do you get in the shared kitchens? Just so I know what to bring if I want to cook Yes, you do But if you want to bring your own, you can... but I wouldn't advise it if your room's small, so best to wait until you're there, and pop in to the .instore behind Ashburne if you're so inclined (this goes for cooking things in general too).

And you don't get anything provided in the kitchens (well, ok, you get the things you'd expect (fridge, freezer, microwave, tabletop oven & hobs/cooker, sink), and the first year we also had a draining rack. However... I wouldn't bother carting kitchen stuff in, since it's only more to take back if you don't use it. You won't need to cook evening meals immediately, since they usually take the Freshers out somewhere, and there's always the cafe at Owen's Park - just bring your cutlery and crockery, and something for breakfast/lunch if you're arriving at the weekend. You can buy it locally when you arrive at .instore (walk down Old Hall Lane till you get to a big road, turn right, and carry on walking till you spot some big shops on the other side), Sainsburys (cheap, nasty, and bound to run out) or an Aladdin's Cave of a shop in the Curry Mile that I've forgotten the name of. Or, of course, anywhere in Manchester.

along with Ashburne) it's the hall with the most CCTV

There are some advantages of Ashburne that aren't linked to the fact it's girls-only - things like the big, recently-refurbished rooms, the nice grounds, the library (which you can borrow books from, and work/revise in)... and the odd film crew (they spent a day filming a little bit of Shameless here, for instance).

As to it being girls only, well, it does mean I can walk about in my pyjamas/wrapped in a towel (when i've just stepped out the shower, or something)without worrying that I'll embarrass some bloke who may or may not be round the corner, and it does mean we don't get any testosterone-fueled fire alarms, like we got at school. A plus for me is that I actually meet girls, because the gender balance in my subject is skewed massively towards the blokes (80% are blokes). Can't immediately think of any disadvantages.

The entire thing is "Ashburne Hall with Sheavyn House".

Ashburne is divided into comunicating "wings", Sheavyn into non-comunicating (IIRC) numbered "blocks".

The wings of Ashburne are 3, namely Ward (PG), Mary Worthington (UG), and Lees (UG). Practically, the wings don't mean a thing, except when it comes to numbering the rooms. Oh yeah, and they were built at different times (you'll most likely get a potted history of the hall in the welcome pack, if you're interested in such things.... and even if you're not ).

Yes, I agree... it's a wonderful building to come home to late at night, it beats the pants off places like OP in terms of looks. And the grassy lawn is a great place for sitting out on in the summer.

It's great to sit here with my window wide open, and watch the lazy summer afternoon as I revise... doesn't feel like you're in the middle of Manchester at all

View from Lees Wing	View from Lees Wing