St Aidan's College, Durham

St Aidan's College is a college of the University of Durham in England. Founded in 1947 as the St Aidan's Society, but able to trace its roots back to the end of the 19th century, the college is named for St Aidan of Lindisfarne.HistoryThe college has its origins in the small group of women, known as home students, who were first allowed to study at Durham in 1895. At that time, and indeed until the Second World War, it was considered unsuitable for female students to live in lodgings: they either had to be members of a College or to live at home. The numbers were never very large; for example, in 1936 there were only five. However, a substantial increase in the number of female students after 1945 meant that the former group of home students was reorganised, emerging as the St Aidan's Society in 1947.The St Aidan's Society had its offices at 24 North Bailey (now the bar and club of the Durham Union Society). Some of the students lived in Shincliffe Hall, and others in lodgings. A Common Room was soon found in 50 North Bailey and chapel services held at the church of St Mary-le-Bow. The first principal was Ethleen Scott, having been "Censor" of the female home students since 1937.In 1961 St Aidan's was reconstituted as a full "Council College" (meaning that its governing council is a sub-committee of the University Council, the university's governing body). It moved to its present buildings on Elvet Hill in 1964, becoming one of the first of the university's "Hill" colleges. The college buildings are in a modernist style, having been designed by architect Sir Basil Spence and arranged in a semi-circular arrangement surrounding a central lawn. The original design was intended to represent the hand of God holding a jewel, with the curved corridors as the fingers, the straight corridors as his thumb, and a small chapel as the jewel. However, financial constraints prevented the chapel from ever being built and later extensions to the straight section did not follow the original idea.