Birks Grange Village Reviews

definitely the best catered accom in exeter. the canteen and cleaning staff are especially lovely, the rooms are very spacious and if you're lucky you'll get a great view from your room. lack of social spaces which makes it hard to socialise with your flat but it's easy via dinner and then once you're close you can just hang out in each other's rooms or the hallway (it's a lot more fun than it sounds). yeah cardiac is a drag but the walk to town is easy and you become numb to the hills after a while. definitely worth it for catered plus you have the marketplace in reception anyway

Great! Cardiac Hill is not the best but just need a bit of courage in the morning! Townhouses are the best in my opinion!

The Townhouses are the best accommodation available to any student anywhere

Wifi could have been better, but that was all the halls. Location is good but the hill is intense before leftures and a 25 minute walk into the city.

Although it was located at the bottom of a giant hill, it really was a fun and social accommodation.

Nice and modern and only a 12 minute walk from central campus and a 20 minute walk to town. Nice balance of night life and quietness, people are fun and friendly and the accommodation is spacious. The actual social area is old and lacks actual things to do and therefore needs renovation in my opinion.

Absolutely brilliant place. Great location, most green beautiful part of the campus. Rooms are lovely, huge desk, huge wardrobe, lots of storage space. Kitchen and dining area are very spacious. Townhouse provides a relatively quiet environment too.

Definitely pick Birks Grange Village if you want to go catered! Although you have to walk up cardiac hill to get to your lectures it's definitely worth it as it's such a sociable environment and everyone is genuinely so nice and the accommodation is brilliant you get your own shower as opposed to a wet room in holland hall!!!

Townhouses, flat blocks and studios in one area can lead to only one thing. Massive house parties. Love it. There's even a ping pong table and a cat. If you can survive cardiac hill three times a day, Birks is for you.

Modern, comfortable halls with decent kitchens (in self-catered). Quiet location, but quite far from the centre and you have to climb a very long and steep hill to get to campus. My block was cleaned regularly (but not my room) and there was an efficient fault-reporting/query/postal collection service. Wifi was excellent, fast and only went down on one or two occasions.

It's alright. Cardiac Hill sucks.

Specifically for a Townhouse (Nblock) The building are new and so clean and light. 12 'flatmates' is a perfect number and the kitchen/lounge is big enough for all of us- normal flats don't get a social area so big. Selfcatered is good fun. Residence help team are great and small fixes have been done veryquickly Cardiac hill is the only downside

Amazing Halls for making friends, the scenery is great, you're only a short walk from the center, safe location and the atmosphere at night is quite surreal. This was my second choice of accommodation but having been placed here I regret not leaving it as my first. Downsides are pretty general for any of the university residences; Wednesday fire alarm tests, random maintenance strangers in your house, no extractor fans in the bathroom etc. However the killer is cardiac hill, do not even think about applying here till you have walked to campus from the bottom - it was a real eye opener.

the hill is absolutely massive, and you have to taxi to town for nights out

Really nice rooms, clean and quite new. Good facilities, large laundry, shop on site. No common rooms for studios so a bit lonely. Steep hill to get to campus, 20 minute walk to town centre. Wifi could be better

Studios don't come off well with the above factors, but they do come with the added bonus of only having to wash up twice a week. Whilst it can be harder to meet people, making a real effort in Freshers' Week can sort you out. Birks is down Cardiac Hill but other than this is about a ten minute walk from the Forum and fifteen minutes from the Lemmy. We're also closer to the Impy and town is twenty minutes away so you aren't too far from anything. The accommodation is really new, everything is clean and there's lots of storage space and you even get a double bed.

Loved living in Birks, however tee really could have done with a common room, and the 45 minute walk to town was a bit of a drag in winter

Not that much use of common spaces, but rooms were big, clean and had en suites. Catered food meant that social spaces (such as kitchens) weren't needed.

I had some trouble with flatmates but that's personal. Birks was awesome.

Birks Grange is a very social place to stay with lots of students from all walks of life. Catered accommodation is particularly social as you will sit with other students in the canteen when you have your meals. Whilst the location isn't ideal being 20mins from town and requiring you to mount a rather large hill (lovingly dubbed 'Cardiac Hill' - you get the picture) the halls are good value and very well equipped. The grounds are also really pretty as the whole campus is filled with little pockets of botanic garden.

Catered here is a great opportunity to meet new people and have a consistent routine in the evenings to help with food (no need to worry about trying to fit cooking in!). On the downside there is a lot of noise in the car park area where people tend to gather in the late evenings which can make it difficult to sleep if you are particularly sensitive, the showers where I was staying were very unreliable and some days no water would come out, only to return the next day. Laundry is very accessible and it is very handy having a shop and reception close by (especially if last minute plans mean you are unable to attend dinners - food here is relatively expensive in comparison to shops in town but no more so than the shop in the centre of campus). Finally the utility rooms are only mildly useful. They contain an ironing board, an iron, a sink and a microwave. Any other electrical appliances you may want (toaster, kettle, etc) will need to be purchased yourself. But it was nice having a lift!

Catered was the best option by far

Such hot halls but very sociable.

Accommodation is nice but very small for the money, prices are very high. There isn't a very good social life for Birks Grange as a whole, but so long as you get on with your flat - the corridors can be fun...

staying here for first year has given me new friends and a great experience at an exeter campus accommodation