Andrew Melville Hall | Accommodation Overview

The final hall in my Accommodation Overview series is Andrew Melville Hall. Found on the North Haugh, is Andrew Melville Hall. It's one of the newer halls at St Andrews having being built in 1967 (most halls are a lot older) in the brutalist style with a nautical feel with porthole windows in the doors and staircases connected to a central walkway (not unlike on a ship). It was refurbished a couple of years ago to be a lot more modern inside than it used to be. Andrew Melville Hall was also featured in the film "Never Let Me Go" starring Keira Knightly. Former Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, also stayed in Andrew Melville Hall when he was a student at the university.

It's location is ideal for any Science Students for the same reason as Uni Hall and ABH, and similarly, is a bit of an unfortunate location for Arts students. It's mere minutes walk from even the Physics building at the other end of the North Haugh and less to Chemistry or Computer Science but for anyone with lectures in the Quad or anywhere else in town, you might want to leave halls a little earlier than your scientific friends, or get a bike! It's about 20 minutes walk from Sallies Quad and the Main Library in town. If you intend to use the gym though, you're in an ideal location as the back of Melville faces the sports center (yes there is a back door) so avid gym goers rejoice!

Melville is a catered hall but occupies a slightly lower price point than the other catered halls (to be honest I'm not 100% sure why)-. Since it's catered, everyone eats together which leads to a good amount of hall spirit and like the other halls, it's easy to make friends over meals (even if it's sparked by complaining about how much you don't like jackfruit. Like what is it?? I still don't know.).

Like other halls, the hall committee is your voice in the hall and run events throughout the year including in Freshers Week. Andrew Melville holds it's own Hall Ball in December for it's residents then later in the year, pools its resources with that of the much larger ABPH Committee to host a joint North Haugh Ball, which this year was Diablo themed (here's a link to the 2019 Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/NHB19) and featured Gok Wan as a DJ. Like the other hall balls, it's open to non-residents but unfortunately this year clashed with the Sallie and Gannochy Ball so I wasn't able to attend North Haugh Ball.

Like in my last post, I never heard back from the senior student of Melville so I can't relay their thoughts on the hall so I'll leave you with the comments of a Melville resident from this year. As this is the final Accommodation Overview post, I'll be moving onto something else in the next post to stay tuned for that!

"I really enjoyed not having to set time aside to cook everyday. I’ve been cooking for myself for years and I enjoy it, but not having to think about it everyday gave me more time for other things. Also the quality of the rooms in Melville is pretty high: 3/4 size beds, many plugs including USB ports, and the room itself is a pretty decent size."


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