What's Runnymede 2 like at Royal Holloway?

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Humidity can be a bit of an issue at times, me personally (and also my friend) had issues with mould moving in. the only ventilation is in the bathroom and I had to clean my vent out as it was blocked. I bought a fan from Tesco and it helped keep the room nice and cool though

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The place is generally pretty safe and your room, flat door, and front door are all locked using keycards, depending on the block you're in it's well lit, and it's near back gate so you can exit into Egham quickly. The occasional incidents i've heard of this year have generally happened on the other end of campus (Penrose and GE) away from Runnymede etc

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Kitchen is never crowded, it's big for what it is and everyone gets a drawer and two cabinets, plus a separate place under the sink to keep pots and pans (With the kitchen though be aware that the photos they show on the accommodation page are literally just ONE flat's renovated area, so you're almost guaranteed to end up in a kitchen that's much more dated, additionally only one oven opposed to two in the photos) Also we've personally had constant problems with leaky taps, no hot water etc so bare that in mind

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It's actually probably the best located area on campus which is a huge advantage. It's adjacent to the back gate which takes around 15 or so minutes to walk to Egham and the station (flat path too - no egham hill!!) It's very close to multiple buildings like Shilling, Queens, Student union etc. Additionally, the allocated laundrette for Runnymede 2 is in The Hub, which is jarring to walk to, but Tuke's laundrette is directly opposite block V, and the code to the door is easy to find out, so a lot of us have instead used that area for our laundry.

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In terms of socialisation i'd only really expect anything during freshers, a few people would host flat parties where I actually met one of my best friends - bare in mind however these were always loud as hell

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Noise can be a bit iffy, the walls are paper thin so you can hear your flatmates doing anything, and V,W and X are situated around the car park so you'll often get 'those' types of lads that rev their car engines. Also people shouting etc walking back from SU nights. I ended up sleeping with my airpods sometimes because they drowned out the noise

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surprisingly no issues regarding bugs or silverfish especially considering the age of the accommodation - however you may occasionally encounter a rat or two around the bin storage but they've never gone anywhere near the accom itself

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I don't suppose you know what sort of incidents happened near Penrose? I'm also considering choosing Highfield haha

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Is it often that you have problems with hot water? If so, how often are you prevented from having a shower because of this?

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Do you find you have enough fridge/freezer space?

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Is it jarring to walk to the Hub for laundry because of noise/the amount of people?

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I met someone staying in Highfield and they personally loved it and they felt safe around the area so I would def look into it more, i'm sorry if i've scared you 😭 The most notable thing I heard happened in GE where people had been maliciously using fireworks - in addition to police being called about noise inside the flats of george eliot a couple times through the year. I haven't heard of anything happening in the Penrose/Highfield area specifically so i'd def keep it open as an option

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Personally I have never had an issue with hot water in the showers although I'm not sure if that had occurred with anyone else. I definitely remember being able to take a hot shower during a problem period with the kitchen sink though which is hopeful!!

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Fridge space is decent. You get one shelf, freezer compartment and shared space in the fridge door to keep milk etc. The fridge space was perfectly fine, though the freezer compartments varied in size so I occasionally struggled with fitting everything into the freezer drawer, however my luckier flatmates with bigger compartments were happy to keep it in theirs.

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I only tended to do my laundry at night, because the laundrettes would get very busy during term time especially on a weekend. At this time the hub would be closed, and while you could usually into the food hall (I hated this because I felt it was embarrassing walking past everyone eating lunch while I was carrying my dirty clothes) and down the stairs during opening hours, in the evening you would have to walk around the building which, not only took considerably longer, but absolutely was not safely lit so it felt dangerous going back and fourth alone. Not to mention the usual British weather 😭