St Mary's College, Durham

St Mary’s College is a constituent college of Durham University. It is located mainly on Elvet Hill to the South of the city centre, becoming the first of Durham’s “hill colleges”. Following the grant of a supplemental charter in 1895 allowing women to receive degrees of the university, St Mary's was founded as a women’s only college called the Women’s Hostel in 1899, adopting its present name in May 1920. It enjoys a reputation as one of the most attractive colleges of Durham because of its neoclassical architecture and picturesque landscape.

The college is co-educational, having only begun to admit men in 2005, the last of Durham’s original single-sex colleges to do so. The college has 750 undergraduate students, around 150 full-time postgraduates students and 200 part-time postgraduate students reading for a Durham degree.

St Mary’s is considered one of the more traditional colleges. It is the only college in Durham that insist on gowns being worn at JCR meetings and also emphasises its use in formal halls. St Mary’s also holds its own matriculation ceremony in addition to the university-wide ceremony held in the Cathedral, where new students sign their name onto the college’s matriculation book, thereby sealing an oath to adhere to its customs and traditions. It also host 3 balls in an academic year, which are the Winter Ball in Michaelmas term, the Masquerade Ball in Epiphany term, and the Midsummer Ball in Easter term.