Ranking Durham’s student living areas

At this point in the term, it often becomes a priority for students to scope out a house for the next academic year. While this may seem early, Durham being such a small city means it’s never a bad idea to start looking once you’ve secured a group that (hopefully) will get along living together for a year. Measured against virtually any other university in the North, Durham’s student housing scene is among the most flavourless. Nevertheless, we decided to rank the different locations students can choose, in order to give you some idea of where to choose.

Neville’s Cross 

The question as to why any rational agent would voluntarily choose Neville’s Cross remains unresolved. I can’t in good conscience claim to know a single resident. Their existence is attested only through hearsay. They are Schrödinger’s students, enrolled yet nowhere to be found, drifting aimlessly through the city’s streets like film extras.

To give credit where it is due, the houses are fairly modern. Beyond that, though, the area’s cultural offering is, to put it charitably, minimal. I will say it’s a perfectly defensible living area for Masters and PhD students. For an undergraduate, however, Neville’s Cross is borderline criminal.

Gilesgate

If exile to a Hill college in first year wasn’t penance enough, some students actively choose to live even further from civilisation. You’d assume a quick look at Google Maps would spell out the deal (a 30-minute uphill pilgrimage back from any lecture), yet some are persistent in their belief that this is “character building” (even though the only building with any character in Gilesgate is the ultra-cheap and convenient Lidl).

That said, it does hold its own as a pre-drinking spot. The catch is that nobody will arrive on time to these pres. One of your slowly migrating group will refuse the pains of the walk, and you’ll end up having to Uber there.

Gilesgate does hold its own as a respectable spot for Masters and PhD students seeking sanctuary from the debauchery of Durham’s student nightlife. It is also of course a spiritual home for anyone who can’t go seven days without paying a visit to Lidl bakery. For anyone else, its bleak ambience and uninviting topography confirm its place in the lower half of Durham’s residential hierarchy.

Claypath 

Ah yes, the neighbourhood also known as Postcode Urban Oven. Picture this: Babs’s lights switch back on, the evening’s drinks are beginning to renegotiate their terms with you, and your body has issued a non-negotiable demand for scran. Only one place will suffice. Urban Oven grants Claypath residents a rare privilege: Late-night food, devoid of the lingering threat of an empty stomach. For the committed post-club scranner, prepared to endure a short walk into town, Claypath borders on the ideal. Oh, and its proximity to Wetherspoons requires no elaboration. You are a Durham student. You know.

About distance, however, it does keep close company with Gilesgate —  just without the saving grace of a local shop (or off-license). Residents are therefore sentenced to an unforgiving uphill trudge, stopping every other pace to lower their shopping and inspect the woefully thin Tesco bags for signs of collapse.

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Whinney Hill 

Whinney Hill is, beyond reasonable dispute, a serious contender for top spot. Sleep through your alarm on BUCS Wednesday? Fear not: Maiden Castle is only a stone’s throw away. A 12pm kick-off? Set off at 11:55 and you’ll be fine. Housemates hosting pres the night before your exam? Relax, Bill Bryson himself has extended a personal invitation to one of his secluded study spaces.

Proximity to the library, however, can be a double-edged sword. On days of diminished productivity, its presence becomes reproachful. You glance out of the window to behold diligent multitudes racing to secure a seat at the Billy B (for context, it’s 8:55am). Humiliation, shame, and existential bleakness pierce the heart as you’re forced to confront a discomforting truth: You have reached “peak unemployment”.

But all is not lost. A black coffee from Whitechurch holds restorative properties no other coffee house in Durham can replicate. In all honesty, as a place to live, Whinney Hill teeters on the brink of perfection. On a bad day though, the unblinking gaze of the Bill Bryson Library is enough to send you retreating under the duvet, condemned to scroll Instagram Reels for eternity.

Elvet

Elvet is a weird one, a bit of a dark horse among the Durham housing zones. There aren’t too many people who end up living here, especially at undergraduate level. But if you do end up here, any visitors you have will undoubtedly comment on just how good your location is. Situated in the stretch between the Billy B and Old Elvet, these houses are perfectly situated for lectures and tutorials, being at most 15 minutes away from the science site or Elvet Riverside.

However, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. House prices will be on the steeper side, and a lot of the buildings themselves are a little older. And while you’re a lot closer to your contact hours, the shops, clubs and takeout spots aren’t too much closer than they are in Claypath or the Viaduct. So whether you prefer Elvet honestly depends on whether you’d rather have a short walk to your lectures or to the clubs. A true test of character. Either way, it’s inarguable that Elvet’s proximity to the academic buildings makes it one of the best housing areas in Durham. But there’s still one spot that takes the cake…

Viaduct 

The Viaduct is comfortably the best of Durham’s housing scene. Nestled beside North Road, it has a density of food outlets no rival spot can match, although almost all of them are nutritionally indefensible. Its proximity to the Durham nightlife spares your legs the post-club trek, and in turn means you have no plausible excuse to miss tomorrow’s 9am seminar by virtue of “aching”.

There is, however, North Road bus station, one of the most congested spots in Durham (for future residents, just walk around it). Yet by contrast, The Viaduct does sit beside two of Durham’s greatest pubs, The Three Bridges and the Waterhouse, guaranteeing cheap pints (with MIXR) and a reliable final stop before the club. And, merely to rub salt into the wounds of every other student area still nursing its delusions of contention, let’s throw the illustrious Stanton’s chippy and the rustic charms of the Colpitts into the mix.

Having lived in the Viaduct through second and now third year, this ranking is obviously unclouded by bias. Even so, through the most objective lens one can muster, The Viaduct is difficult to beat.

Featured images via Google Maps.

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