Dalton-Ellis Hall Reviews

Student Review: 1.9 /5

By member666535 On 19th February 22 Verified student

Genuinely unbearable. People knocking on my door at all hours of the night. My food was stolen from the kitchen several times over the course of the year and reslife made no attempt to fix this issue despite me reaching out several times. Radiator doesn’t work despite sending several work orders to get it fixed. Breakfast ends at 9am. I haven’t gone once. Everyone is incredibly unfriendly. All my attempts to socialize with the people on my floor have been unsuccessful. Several people have moved out due to the complete lack of socializing and awful flatmates. It’s worth paying a little more to stay somewhere else.

I lived in Dalton Ellis Hall for my whole uni experience! (5years). Where to start: Main Hall, where I dwelled, has some of the biggest rooms in the UK halls, so try to get one, especially Main Hall rooms 37, 39, 40. I found some spare chairs, stools and a coffee table in the halls depot, and turned my room into a proper sesh house. Social Life: I used to go out 3 times a week. There is always people around to socialise, and if not, rooms in main hall are so big, that you can host a pre with 7-8 people easy. Location means that there is a bus stop right outside when heading to town, and on the way back you can use oxford road busses, and stop along the way to get your Mccy’s 20 nuggetbox. Food: I m quite picky, but I had no problems. Catering staff was helpful, and if you didnt have enough, you could always wait till the end and go for seconds. Management: Halls warden was a nice old chap who used to get pissed off from the loud noise. Helpful cleaners.

Personally, Dalton Ellis is a hall more for people who likes to party occasionally. There is a nice mixture of people here (introverts/extroverts), so you're bound to find your crowd. Its only a 15min walk from uni campus and Tesco/Lidl/Poundland is only 5min away! Catering is a bit hit and miss but the people in the dining hall makes up for it! :) There's also a bar called Nellies which gives FREE DRINKS during parties! The bar is also sometimes used for hall activities like movie nights and has loads of games e.g. PS4, table tennis, snooker etc... Other stuff the hall has is a library, computer cluster, study room and a squash court. The rooms are a bit small (expect Main Hall) but cosy. The only thing that sucked was the Wi-Fi :(

I lived in Graham block for a semester and it was great ! The photos published on the UoM site are the ones from graham. The rooms are quite long and small, but you can make them really cozy with posters, plants and fairylights. There is a huge pinboard where you can pin all your photos onto. The desk is huge and the beds are quite good. In Grahams block there is no common room or kitchen space to eat, but everyone meets at nellies or sutherlands anyway. Showers were great, only problem was that the toilets got block like every week. Was fixed every time but still quite annoying. Dalton Ellis food is okay. Breakfast stays the same all year round, but there is variation in dinner. Staff is friendly and the atmosphere is nice. Location is perfect. About 20 mins walk from uni and close to lidl an curry mile. Rent bike from biko bikes if you can ! Made friends for life here . Social atmosphere and never boring ! Would def recommend!

The rooms are quite small and have ugly blue walls, but they're much more cozy with some personalisation. The food is hit and miss, it's never amazing (avoid the thai green curry at all costs) but its convenient enough for when you wake up with a hangover to prepared brunch at the weekends. Graham block is about as bad as it gets, there are a lot of plumbing issues in the shared bathrooms which can get pretty grim. But maintenance are usually pretty fast at fixing issues and there is cleaning every other day. The social space in this block are the worst, the kitchens are tiny and there is no common room. But people only go to the common rooms to pre-drink anyway so you can just go to Sutherland or Nellies. Dalton can be very quiet, especially in comparison to fallowfield. It's full of introverts, but its easy to find the group that go out. Socially, its probably best to live here if you like to go out every now and then but aren't 100% a party animal.

A convenient 20min walk from uni (or 10min bus ride if you're into waiting for the damn 50 bus that never comes). The common spaces are clean, except for some of the kitchens which get absolutely filthy, students never clean them and staff seem to clean them quite superficially (which is understandable when there's a mountain of dishes in the sink and on the drying rack. I was in Ewings, which is a bit of a trek to get to reception or to the bar (Nellie's), but it was right next to the dining hall, so you win some you lose some. The rooms are quite small but they're cosy and easy to clean. Internet works well and if you're there early, you can be one of the lucky few to get an ethernet cable, for that sweet gamer internet connection. The food was quite bland at times, but the portions were quite big and there was always something to eat that you would like. Great variety for vegans/vegetarians too. Breakfast is the same everyday and they start to run out of stuff toward the end.

Parties with free drinks every few weeks at the bar, rooms are small but cosy, food is kind of bland but it could be much worse

DO NOT LIVE HERE!!! i lived in dalton ellis for few months but my time here was so bad that i dropped out of uni altoghether because of how unhappy i became here. I was on a floor with around 24 people, and i only ever met about 5 of them and literally never even saw the others once. Because of this noone is ever in the common room at all, ever. you will also be lucky if you ever find anyone to go on a night out with as everyone here only cares about one thing, and thats staying in their own rooms to work, so theres no point trying to find anyone to pre with. the location only makes you feel more isolated, you arent in fallowfield so dont have anyone to walk to lectures with, and there is no transport to get to or from a night out or anywhere at all. i cant stress enough how bad the social life is here. also, there are next to no girls, as there was only about 10 other girls living there at the same time as me out of hundreds of students. the rooms were small and dark and not worth 7k

Student Review: 2.7 /5

By member631770 On 28th May 18 Verified student

I lived in the Sutherland block of DE. First of all, the food is terrible. The portions are a lot smaller than in other halls (i know because my girlfriend lived in owens park). The cathering staff had a terrible attitude - towards the end of the eating times, you could hear them banging stuff in the dining hall so you get uncomfortable and go away. Additionally, they don't throw away the left ovet salads and desserts for days. Reception staff are helpful but they are open 9-5 only on weekdays and you usually need them at another time. My room was terrible - probably smaller than a prison cell, very cold - the heating temperature and working times are controlled by the university and are clearly not sufficient. The bed was old and squeaked a lot. The bathroom had mold and clearly had an engineering flaw so the water would not drain. The shower would be too small even for a 5-year old. Laundry is too expensive for the quality it provides. Kitchens are disgusting. Not worth the £7k.

Student Review: 3.3 /5

By mrouehhh On 5th May 18 Verified student

the catering is poison, i can hear my neighbour talking and making love. The rooms feel like a prison cell. May the force be with you if you chose it.

Lived in DE for my first year, social aspect was bang, internet was super as well, the only downside were an aging canteen and it was a bit chilly in winter.

I lived in Dalton Ellis first year and it was not that bad. Everyone was really friendly and sociable but the biggest problem was that there was no common room, kitchens were so small - literally two people can fit in there but not be able to move and 1 shower on the whole floor. I lived in Graham. Location wise was a bit scary walking down the road to the bus stop, did know quite a few people who had been mugged - so recommend taking the 50 bus. Cleaners are friendly and cleaned well but the problem is with the students, they do not keep spaces clean. Overall, definitely not worth the price. Oh yeah, the food is terrible

I was in Graham Block - the worst block. Showers frequently flooded, heating often broke and the walls were horrible breeze blocks that didn't keep the heat in. There were NO common rooms in the block. The other blocks weren't so bad, but not ideal. It was expensive even for a catered hall.

When I got to Manchester, I ended up in Owens Park (tip, if you put OP anywhere on your application, you're likely to get it). Owens Park has a reputation for being a party halls and that's fine if you're into that kind of thing ,but I got fed up with the constant early hours of the morning fire alarms and loud music being played at night. I not seeping, which caused me to miss early morning lectures and I started getting bad migraines. Also, my anxiety got really bad. So I applied for a transfer and ended up with a room at Dalton Ellis, which was a real stroke of luck. It's a very sociable place but not in the way OP is. With it being in Victoria park, it's closer to the university and roughly 20 minutes to walk, or you can get a bus if you're running late. I would highly recommend DE for sociable people who still value getting good sleep!