John Burnet Hall | Accommodation Overview

The smallest hall in St Andrews is John Burnet Hall (It's so small that I think I met only 3 or 4 people who lived there last year after Clan Warfare since they were a bit visible in their matching t-shirts). Small is no bad thing though, because you see your hall mates so often, it means everyone knows everyone and there's always a friendly face in halls.






JBH (or Jeebs) is made up of two buildings - the main hall (above - which is older and looks more like Hogwarts) and the annexe (left - which is a lot more modern). The main hall is made up of the mixed Atholl Wing, and the usually all female Kilmallie and Fairways Wings. Main Hall rooms have
shared bathrooms whereas the annexe rooms are en-suite.





It's in a pretty good location like most of the older halls in town. JBH residents will argue they're in the best place but given McIntosh is also pretty central between the Arts and Science buildings, I'd say it's a toss up between the two (I am however biased by the Uni Hall-JBH rivalry). To tell you how close it is to the science buildings, a JBH resident from this year has said 

 “If I rolled out of bed at 9:01, I’d be breathless in my seat before the lecturer managed to test the chalk at 9:05". It's not quite the 90 seconds from my room in Uni Hall but it's pretty close. For Arts students it's an admittedly better story than Uni Hall with a 7 minute walk (or 5 in a pinch) to Sallies Quad and similar travel times to the Union and Tesco.
Like their rival Uni Hall, JBH is a catered hall and like in Regs and Sallies, annexe students eat in the main hall with everyone else. As you're not fed all 21 meals a week (and students often sleep through meals) there are kitchen facilities in both Main Hall and the Annexe.

So you get some information about JBH from someone who isn't on the Hall Committee of their rival hall, I reached out to Maddy and Ryan, the Senior Students of JBH to tell you a little more about life in their hall [as always, my comments and clarifications are in square brackets]:

"Congratulations on not being a part of Uni Hall, the first of many successes we hope you’ll achieve in this university [rude] - welcome to JBH!!

Like all halls at the University, Jeebs has a hall committee made up of returning 2^nd and 3^rd years. Our job is to make sure hall life is fun throughout year, including de-stressers during revision periods. We’ve had several different kinds of events over the years, kicking off with freshers’ week (which includes a mix of events everyday). We have our hall ball in February, formal meals throughout the year, movie nights, pre drinks before events at the union, and our end of year garden party in our head-warden’s garden. Talking of wardens, JBH is not complete without our one-of-a-kind wardennial team! They are always there to support our residents, whether you’re stressed with work or feeling down. Our head-warden’s dog Petal is definitely everyone’s favourite Jeebs resident!

John Burnet is pretty infamous for its traditions, from banging our spoons on the table at formal meals, to having a weird obsession with Mario Kart, and even having our very own ‘Ode to John Burnet’, theres a lot that makes this hall special. Most importantly, we have an ancient feud with University Hall – all will be revealed when you arrive…

All in all, it cannot be denied that JBH is an absolute fabby hall. Its beautiful aesthetic, great location and friendly community feel, you can’t get much better than that! Our hall is so great that we have a pretty high rate of returners, all of whom can’t wait to meet the next generation of Jeebsians who we can pass our weird and wonderful traditions onto. There is no doubt that if you throw yourself into hall life, you will have an amazing time in our little hall, and forever consider yourself a Jeebsian.

We are excited to meet you all!!"

 -- Maddy and Ryan – Senior Students of JBH 

Thanks to Maddy and Ryan for helping out with this blog post (despite handing over so much JBH information to the enemy) and if you've been allocated to JBH, well I look forward to Uni Hall crushing you in Clan Warfare this year. If you know anyone else who might benefit from this please share it and check back for future posts. Next time, our penultimate hall, McIntosh Hall.