A Review of Dinwiddy HouseAccommodation in London is kind of difficult… it’s all quite expensive and it can be hard to find somewhere you actually like. This year, I’m staying in Dinwiddy which is the only SOAS accommodation in London. There are other halls that are intercollegiate (ie. students from a range of London unis can rent rooms there) in the area that I know are somewhat popular, but Dinwiddy is the most popular for SOAS students without a doubt. It’s definitely a good idea to properly research all your options and consider commuting from home if that’s an option for you too. This will be my personal opinion of Dinwiddy based on the relatively short time I’ve been there so far. Of course, remember everyone will have their own individual experiences!
Price and LocationDinwiddy is currently £163 per week, which is pretty good (from what I’ve heard from my friends, their accommodation costs around £120-£140 a week in other parts of the country). As far as I’m aware, it’s one of the cheapest accommodations in London considering that all rooms are en suite and the area is so central. It’s on the same road as King’s Cross and a 5-10min walk from the station. From SOAS, it’s a 20-25min walk which is not too bad. There are other halls that are closer to SOAS, but then you have the toss-up of being further from the station. For me, the location is absolutely ideal. You could take the tube into SOAS, but that ends up taking about 20mins in total anyway, so it’s a bit of a waste of money to do it that way.
My RoomNot going to lie, my room isn’t the best. When I arrived, it smelled of cigarettes and damp and was very stuffy. It didn’t help that the window wouldn’t open either. My sink had a crack so big that water went straight through it and the walls had black marks, pieces of tape left behind, and chunks of wallpaper missing. The carpet had some weird black marks on it that felt like spilt wax. The mattress is way too soft, to the point that there’s no support at all so my shoulders crack about 10 times a day and my back is often sore. So not great. Luckily, I did eventually open the window (or, more accurately, it dislodged itself and flew open in the middle of the night) and my sink was replaced within a few weeks without me having to ask specifically (they must’ve read the itinerary you have to fill in on move-in day). A plug-in air freshener did the trick with the horrid smell but my shoulders are still dodgy and the walls are incredibly ugly. I will say that most people didn’t seem to have this much of a problem. We can all agree on the horrid move-in day smell, and some people also had the mysterious carpet marks but the mattress, window, and sink are specific to me.
One thing that everyone at Dinwiddy can bond over is the truly awful showers. First of all, hardly any water comes out. I have to stand under it for about 2mins just to get my hair fully wet. Second of all, and this is the big issue, it’s on a timer system. You know how the taps at school or in public toilets turn off after about 10 seconds? Our showers do the same thing. Around every 20s, you have to turn around and press the button again. At this point, I’ve got the muscle memory to turn it on with my elbow but god is it annoying. Long showers are well and truly a thing of the past.
Something that did bother me at the start was noise. My room backs onto the courtyard so all the noise echoes up and I can hear conversations like they are right outside my door. That can get a little loud when people are drinking and playing music outside. But, I got used to it relatively quickly so it’s fine now. For the most part people are respectful of noise anyway, especially on weeknights. I’m also the last room in my flat, so on one side I have my flatmate’s room and on the other side is someone from the next flat. For some reason, the room connecting to the next flat is incredibly thin and I can hear absolutely everything they do. I can hear her cough, her phone notifications, her alarm in the morning… It’s still something that’s annoying, but it’s something I’ll have to deal with.
You’re probably asking, is there anything you do like about your room? Apart from the fact that it’s my room and my home now… not really. It’s fine. It does the job. I appreciate the fact that it’s relatively big compared to a lot of my friends at other unis, but it’s nothing grand or impressive.
My FlatThe flat as a whole is actually pretty nice. There are 5 of us in our flat and we all get on well. None of us are best friends or super close, but we will occasionally host flat parties together and we’ll chat about our days if we’re in the kitchen at the same time. The kitchen is a good size with a table that can easily fit all of us at once. We have a good amount of cupboards, two fridges, and a freezer so we’re not tight on space for our stuff either. It gets cleaned weekly and our bin is emptied twice a week which is so nice. I do wish there was some sort of living room set up or somewhere to just chill because the kitchen is a little uninviting, but I’m not complaining with what we have. We have enough space in the kitchen to host 15-20 people so it’s plenty. I know some people have much smaller kitchens than us, so I guess we were lucky.
Staff, Management, and SecurityAll you have to do is look at the Dinwiddy group chat to see daily complaints about Sanctuary Students (the company that owns Dinwiddy). I personally haven’t had any issues with the receptionists, but I know people who have had issues with the cleaners and security in particular. The security has been abysmal as of late which led to a scary incident in one of the blocks late at night (I believe it’s now under investigation so I won’t go into detail). Luckily, they seem to have been stepping it up lately but the security guards have a terrible track record and are known to be quite rude and aggressive, as well as doing their job terribly. The management also isn’t popular as we’ve had a few days across the past 3 weeks where there’s been no hot water, and a ridiculous amount of false fire alarms at ungodly hours of the morning/night which have caused a lot of anxiety and frustration. All in all, it’s not great.
CommunityThis is where Dinwiddy majorly redeems itself. I’ve spoken to a few people that aren’t at Dinwiddy and they say that socialising is really hard without the community that comes with Dinwiddy. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to make friends outside of your flat, because none of my close friends are my flatmates. However, being at Dinwiddy has some huge advantages. First of all, you can walk to and from uni together, which might seem small but it ends up adding a lot of time that you can chat and get to know people. Secondly, flat parties tend to be more popular here since going out is so expensive. Of course, you can still go to flat parties if you’re not at Dinwiddy but getting there and getting back can be a pain, and sometimes a whole flat might go to something together so it might be difficult to get invited in the first place. On top of that, being at Dinwiddy makes it really easy to meet people, whether that’s your flatmates, people on your floor, whilst you’re doing the laundry, joining in with people’s pre-drinks in the courtyard, playing cards in the common room… It really is the hub for SOAS first years. One of the girls in my class who’s at intercollegiate halls, which has hundreds of students, is one of only 4 SOAS students there. So, honestly, if I had to choose again I would probably still choose Dinwiddy just because of how important the community is for first years.
That's my personal review of Dinwiddy so far. Would I recommend it? 'Recommend' is a strong word... for me, I think it's the best option. It's pretty good value for money and the social aspect well outweighs the issues I've had with it. It's totally comfortable to live in, the issues I've had don't usually impact my day-to-day, and I would never want to move. Of course, it's hard to have a rounded view without having lived in other halls, but from what I've heard from other people, Dinwiddy is the best option.