The Juice About Pollock Halls

Living in Pollock was the closest thing to having a collegiate experience in student accommodation. You live in a bubble with first-years (mostly) from around the world, go to meals at a fixed time, are snobby about your house when you secretly love another one.

PC - Ibadat Gill

When I applied to Pollock, that experience was definitely on my mind, but so was the fact that I didn’t know if I’d have time to cook in my first year (and that I didn’t actually know how to cook. Yet.) I was asked to fill in five preferences from their 8 houses and I spent a solid five days researching for the best options – uni website, Reddit, other blogs. My top choice ended up being a twin en-suite in Chancellors Court; it was a newer building and having a roommate seemed appealing because I’d never lived on my own before. My living situation in the end is a wild, wild story – but safe to say I had the most diverse Pollock experience possible.

Chancellors Court

Pollock has a reputation for being the posh people’s accommodation, and Chancellor’s is the poshest of the lot, with single and twin shared rooms in 3 blocks around a beautiful central courtyard. This is the only house where you’ll have a key card to enter your room. The facilities in Chancellors are exclusive – there’s a huge common room, a music room, laundry rooms and even a study room. The pantries in Chancellors are the biggest (translation, best to throw parties in). The house comes with its own set of surprises, such as the view and the interconnected hallways (only on some floors), but those are things to discover on your own. Chancellors was where my room was (the best room in all of Pollock, folks) and it will always have a special place in my heart. Insert nostalgic sigh.

John Burnett

It took me two months to realise what and where John Burnett was. It’s the most modern of all 8 houses and its lack of crazy popularity is only because it sits detached from the other houses. People who live here don’t need keys or cards like other mortals, their fob gives access to eat, sleep, play, drink, launch a rocket. If Chancellor’s pantries are the biggest, John Burnett’s are the best. Their twin rooms are ginormous, and they have their own indoor cycle storage and backyard seating. The only thing that brings them down is their tiny common room, but heck even that has a foosball table.

Holland House

Famous for its reputation of being haunted, Holland is so big it has a complex of its own. This is the house with a fair pro-con balance. There are 4 blocks with courtyards, and a Microlab with study areas and a music room which are open to all uni students. The bathrooms are huge, while the rooms (single or twin shared) and pantries are much smaller, and this is the only house with no lifts. The common rooms are huge and live to tell the tale of the craziest pre-drinks and the best birthday parties.

Lee House

Arguably the best tower house, Lee House is also (as of April 2021) the easiest to sneak into. It’s located just behind the reception and seconds away from JMCC (translation, you can wake up at 10.25 and still make it to breakfast). There’s two common rooms, technically one for work and one for play, with cool comfortable seating where you can watch movies, play board games, have a drinks night or play table tennis*. I can go on and on with the wildest stories set here, but let’s suffice by saying what truly makes Lee is the people that live here. It’s absolutely not my favourite Pollock house.

*Said ping-pong table was damaged beyond repair in mysterious, unconfirmed circumstances and consequently replaced.

Other tower houses

The four other tower houses are Baird, Turner, Ewing and Grant. All of them have the same structure, identical rooms (singles with shared bathrooms), similar facilities and only vary in reputation. Grant, alas, lives a life of isolation (without the pizazz of John Burnett to rescue it) and to date I don’t how to actually get there. Apart from that, how lively and sociable which house is really depends on the crowd each year.

At the end of your year at Pollock, you will grow to love your house. You’ll have passionate arguments defending your house’s honour and find the best spots that you’ll claim as your own. By the time you leave, your house will truly start to feel like home and time will seem to have flown by. But in the end, irrespective of where you end up, you will have an amazing time.

Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are my own and should not be taken as indisputable fact.

A complete post about living in student accommodation can be found here - https://www.deepfriedbagpipes.com/post/student-accommodation-the-experience. Drop your blog requests in the comments and follow me on Instagram @diyagoel4712 for updates about Deep-Fried Bagpipes. Cheers!