Open House 27th March - Your opinions on accommodation!!

I looked round quite a few today. A few of my thoughts:

Allen Hall
Central building was quite well equipped. The upstairs bar looked good, but the accomodation that we were shown didn't look brilliant. Bathrooms were well kept and all, but the whole building just felt a bit cramped and dark. A couple of the students showing people round said that it wasn't their first choice for accomodation, but they thought that it was good, all the same.

Ashburne Hall
Where to start. It felt just like an Oxbridge college from the moment I saw it. Really nice looking building, inside and out. Dining Hall was nice (good piano), and there were apparently lots of rooms for music practice. Library looked like a nice area to work in, and the bedroom that we saw was enormous for the price paid for it, as it had a bay window which made the room so much bigger. One of my three choices.

Sheavyn House
Corridors were a bit narrow, and the bedrooms felt a bit claustrophobic. Kitchen was a good size, but it felt a bit stuffy, even though it was out of the sunlight.

Oak House
I was rather disappointed with Oak House, to be honest. After the amount of praise it had on here for its atmosphere, I really didn't like it. The flat that we were shown round was very tight in terms of corridor space, how anyone with a bulky suitcase will be able to manoeuver it around there I don't know. The walls were literally breeze blocks covered with a coat of green paint. The "music room" advertised on the hall's page was literally two pianos missing half of their keys, bits of the mechanisms exposed to the elements through lack of certain panels. Disappointed me enormously, as I quite liked the idea of it from the website. Shows you the value of looking round places first. I was originally going to apply for there, but I definitely won't now.

Woolton Hall
I wasn't originally intending to look round this one, but after the shock of Oak House, I was thinking that anything would be nicer. This was. As soon as I entered the main entrance, it was a nice, welcoming place to be. Nice carpets, walls not just covered with one coat of paint etc. Nice little park area in between the different buildings. The rooms were probably the biggest that I saw on the day, and the bathrooms were nice as well. The bar was well equipped, and apparently they've been having a lot of open-mic nights for music recently, which is good for me (in case you hadn't guessed, I'm going to do Music in September). The surprise package of the day, Woolton Hall will be my first choice for accomodation for me.

Grosvenor Buildings and Bowden Court:
I'll condense these down into one, as they're all next door to each other and share a bar. Grosv Place had decent sized rooms, and the kitchen, to be frank, was enormous. Looked quite nice. Grosv St. Build was quite stuffy, and has the different layout of flats to the normal corridor method, in these there was one front door, and then the bedrooms and kitchen and bathroom in one self-contained area (just like Oak House, but I forgot to mention it then). Bedrooms were biggest here out of the three in this area. Bowden Court was very similar to Grosv St Build, with having the same layout of the flats, but the position of it meant that there was so much more light coming into the rooms. Bedrooms weren't especially big, about the same size as Grosv Place.
I'm not sure about which I'm going to apply for out of these three, but it'll be between Bowden Court and Grosv Place.

My biggest piece of advice would be to have a vague idea of which ones you'd like to go to, and then check them out for yourself! That way, you can get a feel for which one is right for you and you can see how accurate the website is on the information given. I'm so glad that I didn't end up applying for Oak House in the end.

I only went to see 3 in all but I'll say a little about them anyway!

*Whitworth Park: It was great! Had everything you'd need, and it's really close to the uni, which is good with me being with arthritis and don't want to walk far! The only downside was that the rooms were tiny, and the kitchen was also very small and didn't have a table in, but I'm sure i could live with that!

Depends on the flat you get though - I have a kitchen/dining room/sitting room all in one. Also, my flatmate in the room next to me has a bloody massive room whilst I have the smallest. It's the luck of the draw.

I didn't know that, so thanks I really liked the look of it, so I'm really hoping that I'll get a place Is it oversuscribed? The only thing I'm worried about is having a McDonalds over the road - I'll be obese if I'm not self disaplined haha!

No, I think it's a low-demand hall. At least, without a sink seems to be (the halls with sinks are totally different)

McDonalds isn't the issues, Lidl and Sainsbury's with their cheap biscuits is what ade me gain weight! But at least there's a free gym and squash courts (can borrow racquets from the office)

I've asked for one without a sink! Don't know why really, I suppose as there are some in the toilets anyway I didn't think I'd need it!

Shopping for myself will be a nightmare, I'm not very healthy, so without my Mum stoping me from eating the biscuits I'll be bad :P Good job that there's a gym!!