Hull Road is the best student area in York

It cuts a tarmac swathe through the northeast of England, coming all the way from the UK’s 2017 City of Culture to rest at a crossroads in front of Walmgate Bar’s 14^th century barbican. It is one of the few places you can say you live on off campus in York without getting a look of confusion, sorrow or barely concealed derision in response. It’s so long that before it ends it gets bored and starts calling itself Lawrence Street for no discernible reason.

If ever a location served as a unifying link between students in York, it would be this road. Coming in from the east, Osbaldwick, Badger Hill and Tang Hall all branch off it, while at the town end you get the minted students in the fortresses of Foss Studios and Boulevard. It’s all-encompassing and it’s simply the best.

Food

Look, sure, if you live in Fulford you get an Aldi and that’s great but you also live in Fulford you disgrace. The Hull Road has a Co-op (combine your NUS card and Co-op membership card for savings and coupons which you can use at the end of term when money gets tighter), a Morrisons, and halal and oriental supermarkets for the more outgoing types. You’re always five minutes away from somewhere to buy good, proper food. If good, proper food isn’t your kinda thing, then that’s fine, as there is literally a row of takeaways, consisting of both independent (Pizza Kebab House) and chain (Domino’s and Pizza Hut) outlets for you to sink your teeth into. Home Bargains is also a cheeky left-field choice, offering cheap, weird alcohol and delightful ‘bacon misshapes’, if you’re willing to go slightly out of your way. Not to mention the Foss Islands Waitrose, easily reachable if you’re nearer the Walmgate end of the road.

Drink

From the Black Bull to the Rook & Gaskill, there’s more than a few watering holes to whet your appetite if you’re looking for a nice, refreshing lagerbeer or five. There’s even a Working Men’s Club if you fancy really cheap pints coupled with really withering stares from local people who probably would piss on you if you were on fire.

Look it’s a pub

Fuel

Are you a car owner? Few of us are. But if you are, there are two petrol stations on the Hull Road within spitting distance of each other to use, so that’s nifty if you’re stocking up ahead of your day trip to the coast. So you’ve got that going for you, you privileged bastard.

Location

It’s a nice middle ground. It’s far enough away from campus that you feel free from the confines of campus’ brutal brutalism, but it’s close enough that if you’re hungover but have to reach that 9am, you’ll make it with the requisite willpower. Thief Lane and Windmill Lane provide good, direct routes to campus.

Town

You want to get to town from the Hull Road? Just walk or cycle in a straight line to the west, you’ll reach Walmgate, go a little further, and you’re there. A perfect combination of exercise and convenience. If perambulation isn’t your inclination, a wide variety of buses under different companies head into various different parts of town for various prices, although they’re admittedly not as regular as the trusty 66. Still, it beats being stuck in Osbaldwick.

Quite literally a gateway into town

Freedom

Think about what it means, the Hull Road. It’s out of the stuffy confines of campus life, one step closer to the adult world, one step closer to proper adult living, several steps away from murderous wildfowl, and yet still with basically the same lack of responsibilities as last year! What could be better?

Obviously, there isn’t anywhere in York that’s a truly terrible place to live. But if one area had to be considered the best, it would be the Hull Road. If York’s student living locations were a Solar System,  Hull Road would be Earth, the Goldilocks planet, where everything is just right, the food and drink are bountiful and the people are organised enough to have arranged their living situation before they had to look for a hovel over a mile from campus.

Do you live somewhere else in York and believe it’s miles better than Hull Road? If you want to write about it contact us via our Facebook page or email us: [email protected]