Holywell Manor - Yikes!

Many, many times have I walked past what I once believed to be ordinary graduate accommodation. Many times have I entered it's lodge to buy chocolate when the Catz JCR vending machine has been empty. Many times have I seen people go in and out. Never have I had the slightest clue as to what goes on in (dramatic thunder crash) Holywell Manor.

Today somebody who I believed to be an ordinary person guided me into what I was later to discover, is the spookiest collegette in Oxford.

Firstly, I was introduced to the television room. The walls were the shade of blue that a misguided person would chose to paint a room intended to calm - a colour that could only ever appreciated by people above the age of 90.

Rows of identical arm chairs with firm, straight backs that sat at exactly right angles to their seats, faced the television in an anally linear fashion. When I entered the room I was sure that I'd accidentally stepped into an old people's home.

I looked around me for clarification. Indeed there were one or two people sat in the chairs, facing forward, with trays of food in their laps. It was only on closer examination that I realised the people were not elderly but in fact, seemed to be in their twenties just like me.

Calming walls, rigid chairs disguised as places of comfort, trays of food... was this a mental asylum?

I looked around me for clues - a guy wearing flip flops in October, a guy who seemed to know me but I couldn't work out why, and... well, Avi.

Now I've met Avi before and I my first impression was that she was no more insane than is necessary to make a person interesting. Given the latter information I decided that I'd made a gross misjudgment and attempted to appreciate what was clearly an old building, slightly haphazardly converted into a comfortable place for modern living.

Next up, the bar full of people having an organised meeting to contemplate werewolves. Why would eight to ten ordinary people meet in a closed bar to discuss imaginary creatures? My mind slipped back to my mum's theory on lunar people which, you may recall, are those whose temperaments are affected by the phases of the moon and is, I assume, related to the origin of the word "Loony." Those in a mental asylum would certainly be interested in lunar people, the werewolf being the ultimate example and so my case strengthened.

Being an open-minded soul, I decided not to judge and tried to push the nagging doubt that this was no ordinary graduate accommodation out of my mind.

The third clue, the photographs; The Balliol MCR photographs from as far back as about 1985 lined the walls. Fashions change, I acknowledge that, however if the fashions in the photographs had mirrored the fashions from the time in which they were taken, I'd have had a chuckle and moved on - they didn't. As I moved from picture to picture I saw row upon row of jumpers, blouses and basically the sort of clothes that your great auntie knits, sews, crochets or starches (yes, starches) you for Christmas.

As I browsed the staid faces I wondered what the people had to be so serious about - strong sedatives perhaps? Once in a while the lines were broken by the occasional "crazy" face, for example a tall guy with messy, blonde hair and over-sized eyes looked far too pleased with himself in a photograph from the early 1990s.

And what of the photograph from 2005? Completely mad. I was informed that the photograph I saw was the "funny" one and that a serious one was just around the corner - odd, but I couldn't see one...

But still I kept an open mind as I walked through pale, clinical green corridors and navigated bend after bend. After all, this was part of a prestigious Oxford college.

When we reached Avi's room, I observed that almost everything was normal. I began to relax... but within moments I found myself glued to a screen, standing on a squishy mat and letting a computer tell me where to put my feet.

What was going on? Partaking in such an activity left me cross with my feet, disillusioned about my sense of rhythm and a little dizzy, yet it was strangely addictive. After two or three turns at what I'm told is called "Dance, Dance Revolution (DDR)" I began to crave more. How unexpected! What's more, Dan, Avi and another friend of theirs started leaping around in a crazy fashion too.

Because I know that I was certainly completely stable before entering, yet behaved in an unusual manor when inside, I concluded that Holywell Manor is not a lunatic asylum but that the building itself is sinister and has peculiar effects on people whilst they're inside. With this in mind I decided to keep away whenever there is a full moon. It concerns me that a junior dean of St. Catherine's college pays regular visits.

1 Comment

Add a comment