From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Trevelyan College, colloquially known as "Trevs", is a college of the University of Durham in the North-East of England, situated across the road from Van Mildert.
Its internal construction is very unusual. Essentially, it is a string of hexagons which means that many of the rooms contain strange angles. In a typical room, the angles in any pair of opposite corners add up to 180 degrees, making it a cyclic quadrilateral. The story goes that the architect believed that women - for whom the college was originally designed until it became fully mixed in 1992 - would be intimidated by a building full of right angles and corners.
The building, built in the late 1960s, has won a Civic Design Award. More modern additions include the K-block with en-suite rooms and the Sir James Knott Hall. Approximately 320 students can be housed in the building, and around 500 are members of the college, making Trevs one of the smallest Durham colleges.
The college was named after the historian George Macaulay Trevelyan, Chancellor of the University from 1950-7. Its shield bears the upper half of a horse swimming in water, which presumably explains the joshing title of the college magazine, Hippocampus.
It's most famous alumnus is arguably Mo Mowlam (former cabinet minister) who, in a characteristically rebellious act even at that tender age, is reputed to have painted her dorm room black. Other alumni include the puzzle writer David J. Bodycombe.
