The Russell Group uni Vice-Chancellors who get to live in the bougiest houses for free

While most UK uni students live in glorified shoeboxes and struggle to afford food beyond pesto pasta, the Vice-Chancellors of UK unis get plenty of perks. As well as being paid extortionate salaries and getting to claim back really petty things on expenses, the Vice-Chancellors of some Russell Group unis also get to live in fancy houses for next to no money.

Here are the bougiest houses that Vice-Chancellors of Russell Group unis get to live in. Don’t you just love knowing that this is what your money goes towards?

University of Cambridge

A somewhat shameless screenshot of 5 Latham Road on Google Maps

According to the Daily Mail, the head of Cambridge Uni gets a more expensive house than any other Vice-Chancellor.

The Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge is on Latham Road, between the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens and Granchester Meadows.

The extensive garden has a pond and lots of leafy trees to prevent nosy students (and The Tab journalists) from peering in or taking photos. The house is worth over £5 million, and was refurbished in 2017 for £700,000 so that the then Vice-Chancellor, Stephen Toope, could host more parties there.

Durham University

Very vibey flint
(Image via Google Maps)

The Vice-Chancellor of Durham gets to live in one of three apartments within the Grade II listed Hollingside House. It’s on Hollingside Lane, next to the uni’s botanical gardens and Collingwood College. The huge building also contains an events space.

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Durham students were fairly unimpressed in March that the uni spent 100,000 of their money refurbishing the building, when £700,000 had already been spent on it between 2015 and 2027.

Durham University would like to clarify that the most recent refurbishment included the installation of gas and electricity meters, and an upgrade of the catering kitchen.

University of Edinburgh

Ngl,it looks a bit dirty to me
(Credit: SylviaStanley via Creative Commons)

The Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh Uni, Peter Mathieson, gets to live in a Georgian mansion in Regent Terrace. It’s one of the most expensive streets in Scotland – the houses often get sold for £2 million. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s daughter lived there in exile. In 2022, it emerged that the uni was paying the Vice-Chancellor’s bills of nearly £20,000 a year, including garden landscaping bills, and servicing his Aga.

University of Liverpool

The Vice-Chancellor at Liverpool lives in an appropriately named Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge on Sefton Park Road. The house next door was bombed, so the uni bought the land and turned it into a fancy one acre garden for the Vice-Chancellor to throw parties in. The house was donated to the university by Sydney Jones, a Victorian businessman. I can’t say with exact certainty which house on Sefton Park Road is the Vice-Chancellor’s, but they all look pretty big, so it’s safe to say that Tim Jones isn’t slumming it.

University of Oxford

It’s not a massive surprise that one of the highest-earning Vice Chancellors gets one of the highest-costing houses. It’s included in the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Uni’s contract that they have to live in a three storey tall, red brick Victorian mansion in the north of Oxford. Oh, what a burden. The house is valued at £3.5 million. Oxford Uni came under fire a couple of years ago for £100,000 on redecorating it.

University of York

At least the lawn looks neat
(Credit: Stuart Newmanite via Creative Commons)

The imaginatively-named Vice-Chancellor’s House is on Spring Lane in the Heslington area of York. The house was built in the 1960s. It’s prettier than the other brutalist buildings at York Uni, but that’s not really saying much. The house has a large garden so the Vice-Chancellor can throw parties (read: host awkward events where staff mill around sipping champagne and making small talk). The current Vice-Chancellor Charlie Jeffrey didn’t fancy living in it. So, it’s currently being used for storage.

Related articles recommended by this author:

• All the Russell Group unis in their financial crisis eras in 2024
• A very harrowing rundown of how much all the Vice-Chancellors at Russell Group unis get paid
• These haunted Russell Group unis have a terrifying ghost story – here’s where they’re lurking

Image of Peter Mathieson from the Consulate General of Japan in Edinburgh via Creative Commons