Sixth formers, don’t go to Lancaster if you can help it

Of course, being our main university rival, Lancaster gets a lot of stick – and rightly so.

This serves as a PSA for all those considering going near Lancaster: don’t, unless you absolutely have to in the name of your sport. If you want a larger (read: more inconvenient), more soulless and more isolated experience then by all means head west. Just make sure you don’t come back

Shiny (shit) buildings

We are of course, highly aware of the somewhat questionable nature of much of our architecture. Yeah we like to say that Central Hall looks like a spaceship (or something idk) but it also looks like the exact opposite of the place in which you want to graduate. Meanwhile, Derwent and Vanbrugh’s accommodation could be used quite effectively as a filming location for an Eastern Bloc apartment complex. They’re not pretty places, and we know they aren’t.

Oh boy I sure do miss Vanbrugh Paradise

Lancaster’s buildings, by contrast, are clean, prim and nice brick and glass numbers. As a result they are perfect prospectus fodder. They’re also utterly devoid of soul or personality. They envelope the campus and shroud it in conformity. There’s no diversity, no passion here. By contrast, you get the feeling of a gritty, lived-in student experience with York. There’s dirt under the fingernails. You get the proper idea of student life in all its grubby, groggy splendour, and you also get a nice lake. Like Oxbridge’s architecture often speaks to its medieval roots, so does York’s remind us of its brutalist 60’s origins. It’s not a vast heritage, but it’s something. Lancaster might as well be any other uni in terms of visuals.

What even is this

Where are we?

York and Lancaster are both campus universities. York is manage-ably sized (divided as it is between two campuses). Lancaster is a behemoth, surrounded by nothing but motorway and grass. York actually has a semblance of existing as part of a city, not apart from it. A York bus will take 20 minutes tops on a busy night to get you into town, but otherwise it’s usually half that time, and if that’s too far for your amenities, the glorious Hull Road can more than cater to your desires. The bus to Lancaster took half an hour to get to the Sugarhouse at Roses by comparison.

Hello old friend

Lancaster students will boast of the on-campus amenities, and I can certainly vouch for them. York’s Market Square pales in comparison to the presence of a Subway alone, let alone an additional Gregg’s and several themed establishments. I even heard of a secret McDonald’s hidden away among the boring buildings. But who really cares? In York, if you’re getting a Subway you’re getting it in a living, breathing historic city. If you’re doing the same at Lancaster you can trudge back to your room to eat it alone because you go to Lancaster and have no friends.

Where’s the history?

To be honest, it’s a good thing that Lancaster is so far away from the city itself, because what does that have even have to offer? It’s actually smaller than York. Sure, there’s a cathedral, but it’s no mighty Minster. There’s no equivalent of highwayman extraordinaire Dick Turpin in Lancaster. It doesn’t play host to some of the oldest pubs in existence (they must be 300 years old because they say so on the signs), and it doesn’t have nearly as many spooky spooky ghosts. The city wall still stands as a testament to York’s rich and significant historical merits.

Constantine the Great, the first Roman Emperor to introduce laws tolerating Christianity, was acclaimed emperor in the city of York in the year 306 A.D. The first actual mention of Lancaster is as a statistic in the 1086 Domesday Book. Sure, the House of Lancaster won the War of the Roses, but Henry VII was a miserly frugal man overshadowed by his successor, and who did Shakespeare end up writing a play about (subject matter and portrayal notwithstanding)? Richard III. Of York.

This guy did not mess around

The wildfowl has no sass

Seriously. Their ducks are just boring. They haven’t got a Lucy.

Roses stats and spirit don’t lie

York currently lead Roses 26-25. Next year we’ll make it 27 (trust me it will happen). We’ll never stop being ahead. Even in defeat we still won the rugby this year, and it was hilarious. Further to that, the Lancaster campus was so dead and quiet you would have thought it was the holidays.

Next year will be like this but with more sports

I’ll be honest, this is the Tab. So if you’re reading this you’re either already at university or you’ve made your decision. Regardless, I can’t stress this enough: stay away from Lancaster. There’s nothing even outstandingly bad about it. Like the movie San Andreas starring Dwayne Johnson, it just kind of exists without much of a reason.

It’s basically a large Hes East with more amenities. That should really tell you all you need to know (but I wrote this entire article before telling you this so now you have all you need to know and more). You’re welcome.