Warwick University: Benefactor's Hall, 1992

Image: © John Sutton Taken: 26 Jan 1992

This was the second of Warwick's halls of residence, after Rootes. Opened in 1967, it has 46 rooms for undergraduates and was named after Helen Martin of Kenilworth, who during her life insisted on anonymity and was referred to by the university as "the benefactor". I took this picture on returning to Warwick for the 1966 intake's twenty-fifth anniversary reunion. The building's concrete frame was originally - like many of the University's first buildings - covered with white tiles (hence "white-tile" as an alternative name for the "plate-glass" universities new in the sixties), but is now clad in something else. Sixties students kicked up a fuss when it was discovered the tiles cost ten-bob (50p) each at a time when a gallon of petrol was 4/6 (22p).

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