About visiting Nottingham, Warwick, Oxford, Durham

[Cranky2day]

As there are no open days we were thinking of making day trips over the summer to some of the university towns DS is interested in and just having a wander round. Nottingham and Warwick are both campus universities. Would we be able to wander around campus, or is access restricted? Oxford and Durham have colleges, so presumably we can only see those from the outside, yes?

Not sure about the current situation but in the past it’s been possible to have a quick look around lots of the Oxford colleges (from the quad, say). You could ask the porters if it’s ok to do that.

Yes, you can only see Durham colleges from the outside, but you can certainly wander around the grounds of most of them. You will probably also be able to see the location of the department. And you can have coffee and cake outside and look around some lovely shops.

I went to Durham several years ago, lovely uni and would highly recommend!
The hill colleges (based around South Road) you will be able to see the outside of most of them, however the bailey colleges (the ones in the city centre) generally just have a door into the college from the terraced roads so you won't be able to see anything. Not sure if the castle will be open to see University (Castle) college.
The main bulk of the university buildings are at the campus on South Road, it's open plan so you should be able to wander that campus and see the outside of those buildings. There are lots of other buildings scattered about the city but they are generally just a converted house for smaller groups so not missing much. There is also a sports centre slightly outside the city centre that you may be able to see from the outside but I have a feeling it's gated so might be shut at the moment.

You can walk around the university park campus at nottingham. Beautiful grounds, one of the biggest campuses in the U.K., and open to the public.
www.nottingham.ac.uk/about/campuses/universityparkcampus.aspx

You'd be able to drive round Warwick campus - but it won't take you long! Not sure if the shops and bars are open at the moment and I wouldn't make a big trip to go there - you can't get much of a feel from a near empty campus. Don't forget if you go to take a trip round Earlsdon and into Leamington - you'd be living there after the first year and that'll give you more of a feeling than the campus.

You may not be able to drive onto the main campus at Nottingham but you can usually park nearby and walk in. There are gardens on campus open to the public so I'm sure you can wander around even with any Covid regulations.

@SlidesAndLadders

You'd be able to drive round Warwick campus - but it won't take you long! Not sure if the shops and bars are open at the moment and I wouldn't make a big trip to go there - you can't get much of a feel from a near empty campus. Don't forget if you go to take a trip round Earlsdon and into Leamington - you'd be living there after the first year and that'll give you more of a feeling than the campus.

Thanks @Slidesandladders. Are the sports facilities on campus or somewhere else?

I've been up to the Warwick campus this morning to feed the ducks. No issues with access.

Sports facilities on the campus, sports centre, football and cricket pitches etc etc.

Thanks for all the helpful replies.

You'd be able to drive round Warwick campus - but it won't take you long! Not sure if the shops and bars are open at the moment and I wouldn't make a big trip to go there - you can't get much of a feel from a near empty campus.

Sciences students are back on campus for Term 3, so it isn't near empty. Just not as busy as usual.

Oxford colleges are open to tourists, at least in non Covid times: www.ox.ac.uk/visitors/visiting-oxford/visiting-the-colleges

We arranged a visit to Warwick meeting a tutor and the department had a student give us a tour. The campus is open access anyway.

You can drive onto the Nottingham campus at the weekends, not weekdays though. But the campus is open to anyone to wander around the grounds all week.

You can get a coffee/lunch to takeaway at the Portland cafe portlandcoffee.co.uk/

Or enjoy an ice cream by the lake

We went to Nottingham there is a hotel in the campus which we stayed in for the night and spent each day wandering round the campus- it’s a stunning campus, we wandered into buildings, looked through windows of halls of residence and she decided she loved it and went there

www.nottingham.ac.uk/conference/facilities/orchardhotel/orchard-hotel.aspx

Yes you can walk around the campuses/universities but obviously can't access the buildings. We have visited a couple over the summer and one recently, as my DD needs to make her final decision.

We visited Durham last year and made a long weekend of it, lovely city. I know you can sign up to the online open days bit I feel strongly that our teenagers a least need to visit the city or walk round the campus before making their decision.

We also visited Birmingham campus last summer and they did have notices up saying no visitors but to be honest we were only there 1 1/2 for a feel for the area. We were stopped by security and asked why we were visiting and they were lovely and said it wasn't a problem. We saw three other families doing the same thing!

Royal Holloway had short, timed open days in person which was great.

Yes we went to Nottingham yesterday, drove around Campus then parked up and went for a wander. I don't think you can during the week though.

We visited a few unis last summer under the same conditions: Durham, Bristol and York. We also ran around Leeds university campus during a 30 minute pitstop.
The campus ones (Leeds and York) don't look their best without students so bear that in mind. I had visited Leeds twice before for ds and it was such a buzzing place but when we went with dd it was so quiet and empty.
Bristol had an app with a walking tour going round the locations of the main buildings, I really recommend that and I believe Durham has just released a similar one. We based our entire Bristol visit round that app and saw loads of places we would have missed if we had just used Google maps (as we did everywhere else).

Just checked but the Durham one may not be released yet. It will be called Durham University Tours according to the email I had.

Worth adding that some Oxford colleges normally charge for entry but if you tell them your son is a prospective student, you will get in free.

Nottingham Uni campus is definitely open at the weekends cos they've just restarted swimming lessons that my kids go to!

Durham - just be wary with colleges like Castle (and Hatfield as well have at least some in the same situation) that lots of their accommodation isn't in the "college building" itself but close by.

We took D1 back to Oxford 2 weeks ago, and her college were very strict about visitors - we were told to spend the minimum amount of time helping her in with her stuff, wear masks all the time, and leave within 30mins (after a 5 hour drive!). It varies college to college though - Magdalen were open for tourists (£6!) and I'm pretty sure they let prospective students in free. Anyway, Oxford is a lovely place to wander round and you can see a lot even if there's limited access to colleges. I expect they will open up more, maybe from May 18th.

@LeiatheSchnauzer great advice about the app thanks

There are two main Nottingham University campuses, but when we lived in the city we would reguarly go to Highfields park, its lovely to walk round the lake, and you can even take a boat out. There is a nice cafe there too.