Historical version 10 of Pembroke College (view current version)

  • 276444
  • Pembroke Street
  • OX1 1DW

Pembroke is a relatively small college specialising mainly in rowing, singing, musical theatre and law. Also pretty hot on oriental studies.

There are three quads; the one when you go in is Old Quad, which mainly contains the JCR and the MCR, college offices and teaching rooms. The one to the right is Chapel Quad. This contains the hall, which is the thing which looks like a chapel, and the chapel, which is the thing which looks like a hall.

Around the back of Chapel Quad is the North Quad, which contains most of the accommodation; some freshers and lucky finalists are put up in the MacMillan building to the west end of North Quad and up the steps, but most folk are in the converted houses on Pembroke Street. There is a street running through North Quad, Beef Lane, which Pembroke bought outright. I don't know if it's a right of way or just as a courtesy, but it's opened on Sundays for people going through to St. Ebbe's Church and St. Aldate's Church.

To the left of Old Quad is the McGowin library, donated by the McGowin family of Alabama in 1974.

The other finalists are in the Geoffrey Arthur Building (call it the GAB, and don't call it the Jeffrey Archer Building, we've heard that one) which is down Abingdon Road and by the river.

The atmosphere at Pembroke's generally chilled out, although JCR/MCR relations were really very bad when I was there a couple of years ago, and emphasis is explicitly placed on extra-curricular activities by tutorial staff. Not the place to go if you want a first, although plenty of firsts do happen here, the focus is on balance and turning out "rounded individuals". An intimate, supportive atmosphere, Pembroke was once in financial trouble, but is definitely out of it now, and expanding in a multi-million venture to build a brand new quad out of lovely old buildings. You cannot fail to love the place.

OS X co-ord: 451255     OS Y co-ord: 205993     (Latitude: 51.749830 Longitude: -1.257448)
This is version 10 (as of 2012-03-16 09:06:51). View current version. List all versions.