Eliot College, Kent

Elliot College
University of Kent
     
Named after T.S Eliot
Established 1965
Master Stephen Burke
Undergraduates N/A
Postgraduates N/A
Website http://www.kent.ac.uk

Eliot College is the oldest college of the University of Kent. It was established in 1965, the same year the university opened.[1]

Contents

Namesake

The college is named after T. S. Eliot, the poet who died on January 4, 1965, the same day the university was formally established. The name "Caxton College", after William Caxton, was also considered.[2]

College architecture

The basic design of the college was inspired by Louis Kahn's design for a residential block at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.[3] The need to have three hundred study-bedrooms and several large areas for distinctive use, such as teaching, a common room and a dining hall plus kitchens, led to the adoption of a section design with the college divided into several square blocks, each containing a distinctive interior space with study bedrooms along all four walls. The Bryn Mawr residential block has three squares in a row, but faced with the need for an additional square for each college, it was decided to arrange the squares in a cruciform layout.[3]

The college is to a large extent a mirror of Rutherford College, as the same basic design was used for both and time constraints meant that there was no opportunity for the latter to be adapted to meet problems encountered in the use of the former. However due to the contours of the hill on which the campus is built, the two colleges are not exactly alike and in later years annexe extensions and alterations were to further the differences.[4]

Becket Court

In addition to the college's main accommodation, it also includes the adjacent Becket Court residential building, named after Thomas Becket. ("Becket" was one of several names originally considered for what became Darwin College.[5]) Becket Court was opened in 1990[6] and contains en suite accommodation.

Dining

This is in addition to many vending machines in the corridor just outside Mungo's.

Mungo's is so named after the character Mungojerrie from T.S Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats published in 1939. The character Mungojerrie is also a well known character in the musical Cats, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on Eliot's original collection of poems.

References

  1. ^ "About Kent - History - 1959-1969". University of Kent. 2007-01-11. http://www.kent.ac.uk/about/history/history59.html. Retrieved 2007-08-05. 
  2. ^ Graham Martin, From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury (University of Kent at Canterbury, 1990) page 124 ISBN 0-904938-03-4
  3. ^ a b Graham Martin, From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury (University of Kent at Canterbury, 1990) page 129 ISBN 0-904938-03-4
  4. ^ Graham Martin, From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury (University of Kent at Canterbury, 1990) page 127 ISBN 0-904938-03-4
  5. ^ Graham Martin, From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury (University of Kent at Canterbury, 1990) pages 122-126 ISBN 0-904938-03-4
  6. ^ "About Kent - History - 1990-1999". University of Kent. 2007-01-11. http://www.kent.ac.uk/about/history/history90.html. Retrieved 2007-08-05. 
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