Formal halls are a highlight of the Oxford or Cambridge University experience. Each college has formal halls once, twice, or even three times a week. You get a three course meal for anything between £3 to £16 (A$7.50-40), and it often includes sherry, port, wine, coffee, tea, chocolates and fruit. Cambridge has 31 colleges. By the end of my year here, I will have been to formal hall for at least eleven of them.

Formal halls attended or soon to attend

• New Hall
• Hughes Hall
• St John’s
• Clare Hall
• St Catherine’s
• Newnham
• Wolfson
• Sidney Sussex
• Darwin
• Churchill
• Emmanuel

Formal halls regretfully declined because of other commitments

• St Edmund’s (missed out three times!)
• Trinity Hall
• Downing

Lunched at

• Darwin
• Peterhouse
• Hughes Hall
• St Edmund’s