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Urban Myths
The following Urban Myths were taken from a discussion on the UOSGrads mailing list.
1) Senate House was built the wrong way around. In
that the large flight steps leading up to level 2 (now built over), were
supposed to face out and impress visitors, rather than the basement door.
Evidence: The "artists impression" in the Vice-Chancellors office, depicts it
that way around. (Colin Edwards)
2) One of the houses in
Battesea Court started to fall down at the plastering and wiring stage. It had
to be demolished and built again. Evidence: I'm sure I remember seeing it in an
OFU made film, about the building of the University. (Colin Edwards)
3) When Guildford Court (I think) was planned, an error was made meaning
that if the buildings were built to plan they would not fit on the site. The
solution was to reduce all measurements to 75% of their original length making
the whole court ridiculously small. Evidence: Rooms that are too small to fit
beds in, toilet doors that will not close unless you stand on the toilet,etc.
(Malcolm McKee)
4) Whilst at Surrey I had a fair few Civ. Eng.
friends, they told me that the whole of the University was subsiding and
slipping down the hill, only by a very small amount each year. Apparently they
were keeping tabs on this in the summer months with those tripod things
(theodolites?), as part of their courses. (Jo Russell)
5)
Guildford (3rd) Court is built in two sections and certainly in the 70's, the
rumour about it sliding down the hill, was reinforced by the number of split
pipes. Every so often a crack would appear in the roadway between the upper and
lower block. Water, steam or somesuch would then come out. The popular
explanation was that the sections were moving at different speeds. (Colin
Edwards)
6) I have another urban myth regarding Guildford court.
Whenever it was built, it was built to a minimum sized room specification as
laid down by the NUS. However, the University built all the outside walls to
this specification and not the inside walls! Hence the reason why the court is
so unbelievably cramped. (Ben Davis)
7) There is a lot of truth
to the rumour that the University of Surrey is slipping down the hill.
My
grandfather was a pile driver back in the late 1930's and he worked on the
foundations for the cathedral. When I told him where I was going to university
he said to me "So the cathdral has not made it to the bottom of the hill yet.".
If everybody on the cathedral building project thought that it was heading for
the bottom of the hill then there can be no doubt that the university will not
be far behind. (Ian Gillman Computer Aided Chemistry
94)
Wizard Japes
1) Jet Lag
For this one the victim had
to live on the ground floor of Surrey or Battersea court and have a mains alarm
clock.
You had to go along to their room at 1am, open the little circuit
breaker box and turn off the electricity. Then with a quantity of black paper,
cover the outside of his window.
Return at 6am and turn the power back
on.
So at about 8am the victim awakes and the clock shows 3am, so he
goes back to sleep. This continues until he finally realises that something is
wrong. The effect is very similar to jet lag. (This worked much better with a
quiet room at the back and the co- operation of the other inmates. It would be
a he, because in those days the girls were always on the top floors)
Methinks that these days, with digital clocks linked to the Rugby time
standard, this wouldn't work. Then I wondered, how difficult would it be to
generate a phoney time signal?
2) Door Numbers
All of the doors in
Battersea Court, Surrey Court and the original academic buildings, had the same
style number plates, with a card holder.
So you could : (All of these start
with "late at night") :
a) Swap somebodys room door plaque, with the head
of their department.
b) Liven up 'a', by mixing in one from a toilet
somewhere.
c) Do a whole series and make it a "treasure hunt".
d) Swap
all of the numbers on a floor, end to end. This was great fun, if it could be
done before the freshers arrived. Even people who knew better, took a while to
spot that one. (We got a note telling us to stop doing that.)
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This site features photographs taken at the
University of Surrey in the 1970's
in Guildford, Surrey, UK. aka UoS, UniS,
70s, 70's, 1970s
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are (c)2009 Colin Edwards, unless otherwise stated.