Hall Of Residence

A Memory of Borth.

Pantyfedwen, as I remember it from 1971, was the women's Hall of Residence for the College of Librarianship, Wales. By the time I lived there, briefly in the Autumn Term of 1971, it was in the process of being decommissioned, as the College had built new Halls of Residence on the Llanbadarn Campus, in Aberystwyth, although the opening had been delayed. For this reason, it was suffering from a fairly extreme form of faded grandeur.

There were no catering facilities, although we managed some sort of breakfast, before being bussed into Aber. for the rest of day and our meals. There were few baths and (I think) no showers. Most of the rooms were like dormitories, but I shared a small room on the very top floor with only one other girl; one of the ones with the gable windows along the road side, with a view of the sea. The train line ran past the back of the building.

The Warden was one of the lecturers at the College, who also had to live there, with his young family. He was from Northern Ireland and his somewhat volatile temper wasn't helped by having to marshal so many young women, newly away from home. Most of us who were there remember these last few months of the life of the place fondly - it was a warm September and we could go skinny-dipping after dark!