Talybont South: Biggest and Best! (Halls Of Residence At Cardiff University in general)

Name: ping_pong

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Halls Of Residence At Cardiff University in general
Date:	23/01/04 (10992 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very high quality, En-suite, Excellent Facilities

Disadvantages: Not the cheapest, Next to railway line, Some have called it "like an industrial estate"

Hello! Welcome to my review of Talybont South, the largest hall of residence at Cardiff University. I am writing this now from within House 23 at Talybont South, so here is a real insider view! I am a first year Law student and I have been at Talybont since September so I have had quite a while to get to know the place and I will try and give you as much information as I can. I know that not many people reading this will be a prospective Cardiff student, but I hope everyone else reading finds this opinion at least informative and semi-interesting.

*Intoduction*

Talybont South is, as I have already mentioned, the largest hall of residence at Cardiff University. It was built in 1995 and consists of 27 houses with a total of 1252 en-suite rooms. I should add that there is also Talybont North which is on the other end of the site here, and that has a further 927 rooms. However it was built earlier and has different house layouts and prices so this op is confined just to Talybont South.

The houses are split up into flats for 8, 6 or 4 students, with two flats on each floor and mostly 4 floors. So in my house there are 8 flats of 8 rooms, a total of 64 people. This leads to what are at first quite confusing room numbers ? house number X, floor X, flat X, room X. However after a few days it becomes second nature to rattle off strings of numbers at each other to determine where on site a person lives.

*Facilities*

Well in each flat there is a shared kitchen. Based upon a flat of 8, which the majority are, in said kitchen there are two ovens with several hobs, a large fridge, a smallish freezer, a microwave and quite a bit of cupboard space. There is not a huge amount of space, but it is reasonable. Really it depends on how much space all your flatmates use up! There is also a table which can seat 6 comfortably and 8 at a push, along with 8 chairs. Unless they have ?gone walkabout? as they often seem too!

In your own ?st
udy-bedroom?, as they insist on calling them, you have your own en-suite shower-pod-thingy. These are wonderful, wonderful things. I can?t believe anyone would actually welcome sharing a bathroom with 7 other people when they could have their own just metres from their bed! Inside a small but big enough space there is a toilet, basin and shower. The shower takes a bit of getting used to as it is a ?wet room? style space with a tiled floor and a drain but no curtain or screen, this leads to the whole pod-room having a wet floor for several hours after a shower.

In your room there is also, unsurprisingly, a bed. Only one pillow is provided ? you must supply your own duvet and sheets, etc. There is a desk with several drawers, a chair, the bed has storage space under it, there also is a wardrobe and a surprising amount of shelving. When I arrived I never thought I would fit everything I brought with me in, but I did with room to spare! There is not a huge amount of floor space, but what do you really need it for? On one wall there is also a large notice board. Supposedly the rules say no posters are allowed on the walls except for the notice board, but in practice they don?t mind as long as you don?t damage the wallpaper. The wallpaper is, by the way, a very nice shade of light blue while the carpet is a darker merle grey. I can?t see much of the blue anymore due to all my posters though!

Now 816 of the rooms at Talybont South also have the option of Network Connection. This means that for £84 a year you can have connection to the University computer network in your room. Believe me I would have died without it, being the Internet obsessed person I am. The connection allows you to have unlimited access to the Internet, except the firewall provided does interfere with a few sites such as Kazza. At the beginning of the year it used to go down for a few hours every now and then, but apparently some people were trying to plug X-Boxes and things into it, a
nd it has stabilised now. There is Internet access on the university computers, but if you want to be on the net at 2am like I am now then this is a great option.

*The Site*

I must admit when approaching the site from certain directions it looks like a prison camp. This is due to the security fence, but really it is much nicer when you get past that. There are quite a few hedges and tress dotted about the place and several squirrels I regularly see bouncing about. Oh and Frank the cat, who wanders in now and then. A slightly bigger thing I must admit is that right next door is a railway line with trains going past every 15 minutes during the day. However you only really hear them if you are on the back side of the houses along the edge, like me, and after a while you just get used to them. I missed the noise when I went home for Christmas!

When you look at a map, Talybont does look worryingly far away from the buildings you are likely to have your lectures and classes in, along with the union. It looks even further away from the city centre and all the bars/clubs/shops that are such a necessary part of student life. However, rest assured it is not that bad. You hit the main area of campus buildings 15 minutes from Talybont, the union at 20 minutes and the city centre at just under half an hour away. This means you can still be asleep at 8.30 for a 9am lecture if you must!

On the Talybont site there is the reception in a building called Southgate House. This is where you go to pick up your key, report any maintenance problems, collect parcels, etc. There is also a laundrette. Oh isn?t laundry fun? There are a good 20 or so washers and driers at £1.50 for washing and 50p for 20 minutes drying. This is adjacent to the Talybont Shop, which sells all your basics ? bread, milk, newspapers, stationary, huge bottles of Lambrini, large bars of Galaxy chocolate... The shop is open from 8am ? 9pm most days.

However the little shop
is really just for emergencies/when it is raining! For Talybont is located a mere few metres trolley push from one of the largest Tesco Extras in the country. It is really huge, and sells just about everything under the sun (except unfortunately choc-chip digestives) but more importantly is open nearly 24/7, shutting only for a few hours due to Sunday trading regulations. So students can stock up on Value products to their bargain-hunting delight. The only trouble is bringing it all back! Despite only being a short distance away, the car park itself is huge and if you are on the other side of the Talybont site then it is a good 15-20 minute walk, difficult when laden with many tins of Value beans!

As well as all this there is ?The Social? or more accurately ?Talybont Social Centre?. This consists of a bar, various little mysterious rooms where meetings for various things are held and a larger seating area adjacent to the bar. There are regular events such as football/rugby screenings, live music, pub quizzes and in freshers week even a hypnotist! The Social?s main attraction is that it is on site, and not a 20 minutes walk away like the union or even further for the city bars.

*Misc*

There is a mail service, which means any post delivered to you is placed in locked box in your house that your room keys unlock. Larger items such as parcels get stored at Southgate House and you get a note asking you to go and sign for them. If the light in your hallway breaks or the microwave isn?t working then you also go to Southgate House to report it. We have only had a few problems like this and they have been dealt with very quickly. There are several CCTV cameras dotted around and a campus patrol so it is very safe for a student occupied area.

In your house a cleaner comes in every day to check on things and just wipe down the surfaces in the kitchen, etc. Once a week they do a more thorough clean including mopping the floor and hovering i
n the hallway. However your own room and pod-shower-things are your own responsibility. Two flats generally have a hover between them, ours is a ?Henry? one which looks cute but doesn?t have a dramatic effect on my carpet as far as I can tell!

There is an Undergraduate Plus option at Talybont South. This is a more expensive option, but the flat includes extras such as a TV with licence paid, most kitchen equipment, duvet and bed linen, and a Network Connection point. This is only in one house and I have not seen it, so cannot really comment on whether it looks like it is worth the extra money.

*Cost*

Having a nice comfortable en-suite room does not come cheap. However, when compared to other more expensive parts of the country Cardiff is not that pricey a place to live, so fees are reasonable. I myself I have just paid my second instalment of £726 for accommodation, which adds up to £2178 over September ? June. The Undergraduate Plus option is approximately £300 more than this.

Well I hope that I have given you some useful information about my lovely hall of residence here! I am really enjoying my time here, my only problems largely being caused by a flatmate who likes playing Michael Jackson very, very loudly. But you get these fun kind of flatmates wherever you live when you are in Uni accommodation. So maybe some people reading this will one day come and enjoy the delights of the biggest (and best) residence in Cardiff!

Summary: