The weirdest thing about each Durham college

With the collegiate system, Durham boasts 17 unique sets of traditions, mascots, and characteristics, which pupils of the 17 colleges pride themselves on. But, The Durham Tab has it on good authority that along with being unique, each college has some feature or story behind it that is… shall we say, unconventional and often highly bizarre. So read on to find out more about all things weird within the walls of each Durham college – because obviously you’ve been losing sleep wondering about it.

Hatfield – The strange cultish traditions

We have to start off strong with the college which harbours the maximum number of weird things which is, undisputedly, Hatfield. Alongside the “rahs” which can be heard from within a three-mile radius of the so-called poshest college in Durham, one can also hear the banging of spoons before every formal. Apparently, the Hatfielders begin banging spoons on the table or silverware while waiting for the high table to enter, and this can go on for up to five minutes.

Most Read

The actual reason Glinda can suddenly do magic in the ending of Wicked: For Good, spelled out

The I’m A Celeb 2025 camp has been EVACUATED and all the cast moved to safety

The real reason I’m A Celeb’s Aitch split up from ex girlfriend Amelia Dimoldenberg

But wait, there’s more. There’s “hands-free dessert”, where you must suffer through eating your dessert without your hands, like a dog with your face in the plate, if your spoon is stolen. No one except the Hatfielders knows why someone would be stealing spoons in the first place. Then there’s the “buffalo,” whereby if someone shouts “Buffalo!” and you’re holding a drink in your right hand, you have to chug it. But, you get to enjoy every sip of the drink you paid for if it’s in your left hand. Then there’s also…well, you get the point. We must move on to the other colleges and leave the strange cult-like rituals which are taking place within the walls of Hatfield (and there’s enough to say about them that this article could very well be named “the ludicrous exploits at Hatfield”).

Van Mildert – The very random obsession with ducks

Now before the Mildert folks come at me for slandering their very cute and quirky love for ducks, please allow me to clarify – ducks are great, but Van Mildert’s ardent fixation on them is highly random given that walking past the college nothing really screams (or should I say “quacks”?) “ducks” at you. My fresher-self would have genuinely mistaken the Mildert building for an indoor parking lot had the front gate not said that it was a college. Yes, the lake is a defining characteristic of the college, and along with it the ducks, but must everything be sunshine and rubber-ducks?

St Cuthbert’s: A historically mischievous society

Apart from being the sole Durham college which calls itself a society (isn’t that ever-so-slightly goofy?), the weirdest thing about Cuth’s is arguably their rivalry with Hatfield, which continues to this day. Legend has it that in the 1960s, a group of culprits from Cuth’s stole the statue of a lion from Hatfield and, in an attempt to cover their tracks, had the genius idea of painting it to look like a tiger. Clearly a college with a weird sense of humour.

Stephenson: Uh…

The weirdest thing about Stevo is that it has nothing weird enough worth noting. Apart from the college-wide obsession with all things railway (which at least makes sense since the college is named after the Father of Railways, and isn’t something completely random like, I don’t know, ducks), Stevo boasts no spoon banging or weird architecture whatsoever. A rather chill, kind of blasé college.

Josephine Butler: The Exiles

The strangest Butler story might be that of the Exiles, a secret society which is supposedly for all the upper-class, predominantly white men in the college who applied to the Bailey colleges but were randomly allocated, or “exiled”, to Butler instead. Their society mission? Being decidedly “cooler” than the rest of the world’s population, and yapping about ski trips and Ralph Lauren. Weird.

Trevs: Need I say any more?

That atrocious building.

John Snow: A lively, Scottish welcome

This one is weird in a fun way. Freshers at John Snow report doing a Ceidlh dance after their welcome formal. A collective jig sounds like a jolly good time to me. The only reason it’s under the bizarre section is because I would not have expected this from a college named after a physician with extremely important, serious contributions to his field.

St Chad’s: Bleet and baah

The smallest Durham college’s mascot is a goat, and word of mouth has it that Chad’s students compete yearly in a Goat Hunt for the honour of being “Keeper of the Goat” – aka getting to dress up as the mascot for the following year’s events. Kind of wholesome. I guess you could say that between Hatfield and Chad’s, with them being next to each other, a chorus of “rahs” and “baahs” is to be heard often.

South: The terrible naming

Being the “blank slate”, and having facilities in better conditions in comparison to the older Durham colleges built in the stone age, South often gets drafted as the unremarkable, untraditional, “got nothing much to say about” college. But I am here to tell you that South does have a weird thing about it – and that is its poor naming. A new college? In the south of Durham? What shall we name it? Let’s call it South! So goofy! So kooky! Who would have thought!?

Hild Bede: The myth, the legend

It is one of the biggest colleges in Durham, and yet strangely as elusive as any college can be. Of course, this mostly has to do with the fact that Hild Bede is so out of the way that most people cannot be bothered to go hunting for it in the wild. But hey, it’s a myth at the cost of being relatively near to the things that matter – aka Klute and Jimmy’s.

Collingwood: A cupboard rumoured to be full of spare antlers

Even the sportiest Durham college has a quirky feature, and it has to do with drunk Collingwood students using their sporting prowess to break things. A statue of Collingwood’s mascot – a stag named Colin G. Wood – stands on the college grounds and is said to be so prone to having its left antler broken by drunk students, that the college has a cupboard full of spare right-antlers, since they can only be bought in pairs.

Grey – A historical BnB

Contrary to the unassuming, “grey by name grey by nature” stereotype, Grey College housed the USSR football team in 1966. Who would’ve thought that Grey doubled up as a BnB for sports teams?

St John’s: Discrimination against tall students

St John’s is to be acknowledged for its notoriously low ceilings. It is not the place for you if you’re anything above 5’6.

Castle: A hamster’s cage for accommodation

Speaking of challenging architecture, we must acknowledge the five people in Castle who actually get to live in the castle, and the very… interesting rooms they seem to have. Rumour has it that said rooms tend to be rather geometrically challenged. My sincerest apologies to the Castle folks who end up walking into random wooden slabs and walls in their room multiple times a day. But also, you get to live in a literal castle so I’m not too sorry for you, struggling though you might be with your ancient rooms.

St Mary’s: The misleading one

Can’t decide what’s weirder – the Mary’s Challenge where students must hold a shot in their mouth while running to the Cuth’s bar and then spitting the shot back into the cup, or the fact that despite its very picturesque grounds, the inside transports you to a 70’s boarding school. Not to mention the Bar, which is so tiny it’s abysmal. I believe Mary’s has repeatedly been titled the “catfish college” by one too many reviewers…

St Aidans: The billion stairs

Why couldn’t we just have another hill leading up to St Aidan’s in true Durham fashion? As a vehement stair-hater, I feel very sorry for Aidan’s students. Stairs vex me so much that I’ve decided to name them the weirdest thing about Aidan’s  over their end of formal dinner tradition, where students stand on chairs and wave their shoes while singing the college chant. The smell of sweaty feet must be overwhelming after the painful walk up the steps…

Ustinov: The ultimate postgraduate mystery

Does it even exist?

Featured image partly via Canva.

For more of the latest news, guides, gossip, and memes, follow The Durham Tab on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.