Athlone was the women's hall in the residential area of the campus. It was opened in 1970 (probably looking a lot cleaner than in this picture). It housed a large common room area, buttery and a dining hall that served both Cameron and Athlone, and Williamson when that was opened in 1973. The internal corridors were gloomy, narrow and long with various turrets providing smaller groups of rooms. It was demolished in 2006, so lasted only half as long as those still alive who were its first residents.
In1987 it became a mixed hall but the different sexes were still limited to specific blocks. Between them Athlone and Cameron provided 446 study bedrooms with a somewhat brutalist architecture with breeze-block walls with no decoration or finish - inside or out. A big plus was that the walls were fairly easy for putting posters up as there was never a risk of any plaster coming away when they were taken down.
Queues for an evening meal would often stretch from the dining hall, down the stairs and along the corridor into the common room. Some of you may have memories of the security guards, such as Norman and Plum, stationed at Athlone's entrance to safeguard the virtues of the Athlone ladies from any over-attentive chaps.
Athlone was demolished in 2006 but the dining room and common room were retained in addition to the floors above them to provide visitor accommodation. The remains now form ‘The 'Hub’ and ‘Imagine’