I've had a wonderful experience living here for the past 3 years. The only major issue I have is the staff and the guest policy. It is way to strict and causes students to have anxiety whenever they consider bringing a guest (often a family member). The staff (specifically the guards) are really mean and often students would sneak in people because doing it the "right way" would result in them being scolded for doing nothing wrong.
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I've had a wonderful experience living here for the past 3 years. The only major issue I have is the staff and the guest policy. It is way to strict and causes students to have anxiety whenever they consider bringing a guest (often a family member). The staff (specifically the guards) are really mean and often students would sneak in people because doing it the "right way" would result in them being scolded for doing nothing wrong.
Helen Graham House Information
| Telephone | 020 803 60033 |
| Postcode | WC1B 3BA |
| Features | Within 20-minute walk from UCL, SOAS, LSE, the University of London, King’s College, Queen Mary University & the University of the Arts. Free WiFi, secure key fob access, 24 hour reception desk, on-site laundrette, maintenance team, CCTV, all bills included, contents insurance, bike storage, onsite security, kitchen/diner, bookable meeting room, study room, TV room, common room & central courtyard. |
| Top tip | Helen Graham House offers 297 rooms directly opposite the British Museum, in the heart of London. Visit webiste to find out more. |
Helen Graham House Biography
If you are looking for central accommodation within easy reach of London’s top universities, then Helen Graham House is the place for you. Not only do you have various campuses nearby, but you also have the British Museum, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Gardens, bars, restaurants, theatres, activities, cinemas, shops and transport links all right on your doorstep.
Inside the building, you can find modern facilities and amenities sure to make your stay comfortable. When you are in a sociable mood, you can hang out in the kitchen/diner, TV room, common room or central courtyard. If you are looking to get some work done, you can make use of the free WiFi, study room and bookable meeting room. For your benefit, there is an on-site laundrette, bike storage, contents insurance, all-inclusive bills, a 24 hour reception desk, maintenance team, onsite security, secure key fob access and CCTV.
Helen Graham House offers residents a wide range of rooms to choose from. Whether you are looking to stay with friends or to have a space all to yourself, you can be sure to find the perfect room for you as you have a choice of staying in a standard or large single room, a shared two-person room, an en-suite room, studio and one-bedroom flat.
To find out more, visit the website now!
Q&A
You can choose your room type and give us a preference for where you'd like to stay in the building. The team will try their best to allocate you a room as close to your preference as possible.
Standard single rooms are available. Please visit www.optivostudents.co.uk to apply.
No, all or buildings are for stuents only.
Large single rooms have double beds.
Hi the beds in standard single rooms are single sized.
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Read Helen Graham House Reviews
The security are the front desk are extremely rude and they should be replaced. You can ask anyone who lives here and they would say the same thing. They are fed up with life and convey that into every conversation that they have with the guests living here. This company should be ashamed for not doing anything about these men when there have been hundreds of reviews online complaining about them.
Thanks for your feedback. We are very sorry to hear this. Your comments have been forwarded to the appropriate team to look into further. If you would like to follow this up or comment further please email: Optivo - Making comments & complaints Kind regardsOptivo Students
Cleaners all left because they were overworked and underpaid.
Thank you for your feedback. Due to a recent organisational shift some changes have occured wihich have negatively impacted some of our residents. We can assure you that we are dealing with the issues and apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Long story short except it is cheap (for this location), nothing good.
Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry that you aren't enjoying your stay at Helen Graham House. If you would like to provide more information on your experience please email us: helengrahamhouse@optivo.org.uk Optivo Students
All in all very disappointing. Concerned with the management team at Helen Graham House as the building all year round was run poorly. Will not be staying again.
Thank you for your feedback, it will be passed on to the team.
I've had a wonderful experience living here for the past 3 years. The only major issue I have is the staff and the guest policy. It is way to strict and causes students to have anxiety whenever they consider bringing a guest (often a family member). The staff (specifically the guards) are really mean and often students would sneak in people because doing it the "right way" would result in them being scolded for doing nothing wrong.
Thank you for your feedback, it will be passed on to the team.
The "most helpful review" that gave 5 stars for every category is as close to a blatant lie as a subjective opinion could be. First off, this is a review for a single room, let's see what you get: 1 big kitchen for every 3 floors - as someone who loves to cook, this is unacceptable. From the description I had expected something akin to flats where every 5-8 people had a kitchen, but no, just the singular large kitchen for 3 floors worth of people. 2-3 toilets per floor. I had gone in expecting 1 toilet per 3 people per the descriptions given in the reviews, but no. There are maybe 2 male and female showers, and then 1-2 toilets for each gender for an entire floor of 27+ people. WTF. Sink in room: Average sink. Not drinking water, which feeds into the kitchen point. Do they expect us to go down 2-3 floors every time we want a glass of water? I've been in prisons with more amenities than this. This feels like a close to a scam. Cleaners/Property Management: fine. No complaints
Hi thank you for your review. Your feedback will be passed on to our teams to help make improvements.
I moved to HGH last year to study. Overall, I’d highly recommend this accommodation! The location is fantastic (Zone 1)! Everything is within walking distance: university, food stores, tube stations, bus stops, nightlife and landmarks, which is very convenient—moving from zone to zone in London when commuting can be very costly. The fixtures and fittings of my room were in great condition. However, the number of rooms facing the British Museum is limited, so residents will likely have views of the courtyard or the backstreet (less noisy). The communal areas (shared toilets, showers, lifts, courtyard, stairs, tv room, corridors, standard room and study rooms) are also in good condition. Although the staff cleans the common areas daily, you’ll likely find dirty dishes in the kitchen or rubbish left by other residents. The people of management are really lovely (special shout out to Maria, Chanel and Frances). If you've any concerns, I'll recommend addressing them with the staff.
Thank you for your review. We're glad you enjoyed your stay with us!
I found this accommodation very nice, great location, very clean, the social environment is a mixed bag but I had an overall good experience, I even decided to stay on for my last year.
Thank you for your review. We'll take your feedback onboard to make the experience even better for you next year.
I’m currently staying here a second time and had been satisfied with the accommodation. However, there have been reports from my fellow students about discrimination and harsh treatment from one of the receptionists which should not be tolerated. The management have yet to take this seriously. The reception should make us feel safe but this is a clear breach of that.
DOT BOOK THIS ACCOMODATION So, honestly I am not one to normally write reviews, let alone ones like this, but if even one person gets saved from living I'm this hell hole it's worth it. I'll start with practicalties: The internet connection is unreliable. There are constantly issues with the water temperature and pressure and on countless occasions the water has gone completely off for hours. The rooms are generally small and get very hot on warm days (the windows are locked so you can only open them a few inches). Now for the more personal stuff: Although it made sense that we werent allowed guests during lockdown, now that the government has lifted ALL restrictions, we are still not allowed to have anyone over, even just for a study session or for dinner. In general, even during normal years, the staff are apparently a pain about letting people in, so if you wanna move out of your parents place only to feel like you still need permission to do anything then this is the place for y
Would try living in International Halls just up the road, this place is a joke. It was ltrly a building site during the pandemic, woken up by relentless drilling most mornings. Vibe isn't amazing, met some of my best friends here but most of the kids are really weird and antisocial. The lifts and basement kitchen freezer break all the time. I will say location is amazing though and the building is clean. Not value for money though when there are cheaper and nicer halls about. Also what they dnt mention is that there's this old american lady that just roams about shouting at people lol. All the other older women that live here are lovely though (they bought their flats before it was bought by Optivo I think). Staff are a bit s*** tbh they give u food from time to time to try make up for their incompetence e.g. they forgot to tell the ground floor residents that they were CEMENTING THE FLOORS and they culdnt leave their rooms until 6pm, with no access to their toilets/kitchen. 6/10
Loved it there!! Best student dorm experience! The staff are really nice and friendly and they’ve helped me out many times.
The shared bathrooms here are really disgusting, often dirty, uncleaned and the basement kitchen is just awful, dark, dated, claustrophobic. For the same price there are other student places with newer facilities and a kinder, warmer, friendlier atmosphere. The atmosphere here is not conducive to studying. The less said about the staff that work here the better.
Wouldn't recommend living in this place. The house is very poorly managed with several episodes of malfunction of kitchen or laundry facilities throughout the year. The last drop, though, is the massive renovation that is happening in the middle of our contracts and in the middle of a global pandemic. Now, residents are forced to live with excessive noise early in the morning from Monday to Saturday. Don't expect a calm study and work environment from Helen Graham House or Optivo. The feeling one gets is that of a place where they take advantage of the fact that often people have nowhere else to go and, therefore, push residents around with complete disregard for their health and comfort
I really wish I’d visited before I signed my contract, because there’s no way I’d have made the mistake of spending an academic year here if I had. It’s a grim, miserable place, and they treat students terribly. Before lockdown, it wasn’t worth the rent, but just about tolerable as a place to eat and sleep. Most things work, just about, but everything’s a bit old and shabby, the staff are hostile and stressed, and the social spaces are just grim. My room has a nice view, but there’s very little that’s nice or cosy inside. The bed and plastic desk chair are hard, flimsy, and too small for a 5ft 7” adult. During lockdown, being stuck in a shoebox room for 20+ hours a day with shared bathrooms and a single kitchen for the whole hall soon started to mess with my mental health, but Optivo has refused to end contracts so I can’t afford to move out. It could be a lot worse, but it could be a lot better - I’d recommend students to choose one of the many, many other options.
Covid-19: They haven’t helped, they’ve made it clear that they prioritise making money over keeping us safe. Optivo’s refused to cancel contracts and done the absolute bare minimum by refunding 10 weeks of rent for students on 50-week contracts who’d already gone home. Other than that, they’ve done nothing in my hall besides put a few signs up and close common areas. I don’t think the cleaning schedule has changed either (no cleaning at weekends, for a start), so the shared bathrooms and kitchen are probably a hotbed of disease. And of course, they haven’t provided their staff with any protective equipment.
Hi, everyone I am Johanna from Westminster university I found this accommodation really affordable and comfortable to my needs. it is quite central I can walk every where from here so I have been saving money . moreover when i want to hang out at night i don't have to worry about transport timetable to return because Soho is just 15 mins by walk so is perfect location. I have not have any problems with other students about cleanliness because every day there is someone who clean the kitchen, toilets and corridors. all staff is so lovely and helpful they treat you like family. so, due to all of these advantages, I consider its price is worth the price
1. There is always something broken in the hall, e.g. elevators (sometimes only 1 out of 5 works), etc. The maintenance takes at least a month to fix it. 2. The receptionists are insufferably rude, and I am not talking about people who are done with life/just impatient in general. They yell at you, interrupt you when you are speaking, dismiss your problems and victim-blame you, treat you like you don’t understand English. They are for some reason so entitled to treat you like scum, it’s hard to believe you paid them. Even my friends who only visited a few times are extremely uncomfortable with their rudeness. Sometimes you are so shocked that you left the reception without being humiliated. 3. They abuse our rights with other ridiculous reasons and blame us. One time they confiscated our kitchen tools with no prior notice and left. We were not able to cook that night, and the staff at night shift were not helpful at all. Therefore my advice is: avoid this place like a plague.
The accommodation is the worst I have lived in London. Staff (excluding security staff/cleaners) are rude and have little investment in resident wellbeing or experience. If you choose to live here you will be consistently bothered by them and treated with suspicion. HGH is an old building, the condition of toilets and showers are very poor. Although staff make an effort to keep spaces clean they are unable to be fully effective. The showers are dangerous, they have timed lights which will leave you in complete darkness while in them and the sensors are hard to trigger again. Kitchens are often unclean with decomposing food left in fridges. The rubbish/waste from resident is often piled outside of the rubbish room and there has been issues with vermin in the accommodation in the last 6 months. Internet is wifi only and is extremely poor at times, though this is a new system and therefore may improve. For the expense of this accommodation there are plenty of better alternatives.
The staff are rude enough wıth residens and they are really unfriendly treat others with no dignity abd lower your selfesteem
HGH staff can be very abusive to residents. They abuse residents in the name of Health and Safety. They go to your room and remove things with the excuse that is for H&S reason. You can complain at Viridian Houses Head Office. Ask for a complain form at reception. They must give it to you.