Park Village in 1969. Published in Focus November 1969.

As we welcome this weekend in 2011 4,000 freshers onto campus, we look back 42 years to 1969 as the first students prepared to move into the new Park Village residences. 

Focus, the magazine that temporarily replaced the Bulletin for a few years, spoke to some of the new residents who were generally happy but complained at the lack of "irons and long mirrors". 

Here is an extract from the original article published November 1969:

The Park Village - Anew [sic] style of living that could become the blueprint for future residential accommodation on the campus

The first students moved into Park Village at the beginning of term. Two weeks after term started the area was still reminiscent of a bomb site with piles of bricks and rubble lying scattered at various points and half erected buildings still held up by scaffolding, standing beside those which are finished and inhabited. Gradually, over the next two months, the Village will be completed and the facilities will include a social centre with a common room, television room and a bar, for the use of the residents as well as the three hundred single rooms and married flats, each with two rooms and a kitchen and bathroom.  

To read the full article, download a digital copy of the original issue of Focus. 

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