| Product: |
Accommodation in general |
| Date: |
27/10/00 (136 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Staff are generally friendly, It's the cheapest hall in StA
Disadvantages: Bit of a trek into town, Spartan facilities, Food isn't brilliant
I had the (mis)fortune to live in David Russell Hall for 3 of my years in St Andrews, a situation brought about largely by financial necessity, as DRH was (and still is) the cheapest hall of residence. And with good reason!
It is a good 20-minute walk from the centre of town, and a walk in the bracing sea breeze does a good job of waking you up in the morning, especially if you've had a heavy night in one of the town's many hostelries!
Apparently, the design of the hall (10 separate concrete blocks in a rough 'V' shape) was borrowed from a Swedish asylum, the theory being that from every window in hall, you could see at least one other window in another block, thus eliminating any feelings of isolation and loneliness. That was the theory at least. In practice, however, my first-year room offered fine and unobstructed views of a heating vent when I was sitting on my bed, or at the lovely formica-topped desk. Not so welcoming, really...
The rooms themselves are not so bad, arranged 4 to a landing (with 6 landings on each side of a block), and on each landing there is a toilet and a shower or bath cubicle. Your bin is emptied every morning and if you put it outside your door, the cleaner knows not to come in... ;-). You are provided with a bed, a comfy chair and a dask with a standard issue plastic chair, and there are three shelves in the corner abovve the desk, along with a sink and a large cupboard. These are literally the bare essentials - it does a job but I'd hardly call it luxurious!
There is a common room (with a knackered old TV if you're lucky!) and a kitchen at the bottom of each block that is provided with a cooker, fridge, wall kettle and a toaster. The individual postboxes are there too (but you have to provide your own padlock if you want any security on these), and there is a payphone in one half of each block as well.
The central block contains the main common room (with satellite TV
), pool room, the canteen and best of all, The Strachan Suite! Open from 11-7, the lovely Grace and co. serve sandwiches, hot meals and all manner of snacks, all at eminently reasonable prices, and a range of daily papers is provided for your perusal. This is a vital part of DRH life as the hall does not provide lunch on weekdays (hence the lower prices), just serving dinner from Monday-Friday and lunch at the weekends. As for the breakfasts, well the less said the better, I was a rare visitor to the canteen in the morning, generally only when I was somewhat worse for wear from the night before and a single hash brown and a bacon rasher seemed like a good idea!
Desite all this, DRH is not the disaster area many people make it out to be, the people there are generally friendly and helpful and although the food isn't the best, it is a hot meal at the end of a cold Fife day and really isn't bad, when you consider what you'd pay if you were eating out all the time, and the tight budget that the hall catering is subject to. I did enjoy my time there, by and large, simply because of the good friends I made and although the facilities are a bit spartan, you won't freeze and you won't starve! But there's not much more you can say...
Summary:
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Last comment:
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LAH10 - 23/04/01 nice review. i live in fife park, not a lot better! |
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