The Best Student Areas in Preston, Compared
Pick a spot on a map of Preston, and you’ll notice that nowhere in this city is ever far from anywhere else. The University of Lancashire campus sits in the city centre on Fylde Road, and Adelphi Square works like a hinge between the two, so ‘further out’ here rarely means more than a short bus ride.
What actually changes as you move across the city is the pace, not the distance. Four areas come up again and again when students describe where they’ve lived. Right on campus in Avenham and Broadgate just south of it, Ashton-on-Ribble to the west, and Fulwood with Moor Park to the north.
What’s it like living on campus?
You can’t get closer than Sizer Street. Our Sizer Court sits directly on the University of Lancashire’s campus, which means the walk to your seminars is short. It’s also the busiest square mile of the city: the library, the students’ union and most teaching buildings are within a couple of minutes of your front door, and Preston train station and the main shopping streets aren’t much further. Good for anyone who wants everything close, including the noise.
What’s Avenham and Broadgate like?
Move a five-minute walk south of campus, and you land in Avenham and Broadgate, the area most students end up in once halls stop making sense. Urban Student Living’s Leighton Hall sits on Leighton Street. The neighbourhood around it is one of the most interesting parts of Preston. It’s been reshaped in recent years by a growing number of students moving in alongside longer-standing residents.
Avenham Park and Miller Park sit a short walk away, linked by the Ivy Bridge and the Riverside Walk, and the Harris Museum and Preston Bus Station are close by too.
What’s Ashton-on-Ribble like?
Head west and the pace drops. Ashton-on-Ribble mixes Victorian terraces, clustered between the Lane Ends shops and Ashton Park, with newer housing built around the old Docklands, once home to Preston Docks, which was Europe’s largest inland dock before it was redeveloped. Ashton House, built in 1810, still stands in the park, and the Preston-to-Blackpool railway line cuts through the area, so escaping the city for a day is easy enough. This tends to suit second or third years who want an actual house rather than a room in a block, and who are happy to trade a commute for more space and considerably less noise through the wall.
What’s Fulwood and Moor Park like?
If you want real distance from campus life, this is where to look. Fulwood sits mostly inside a conservation area, all Victorian brickwork and seven named greens, with easy access to the M6 and M55 for anyone who drives. Next door, Moor Park does a lot of the area’s heavy lifting. It’s Preston’s oldest and largest park, a Grade II* listed green space with a two-mile perimeter that was laid out in the 1860s, and it’s still home to the Jeremiah Horrocks Observatory, now run by the University of Lancashire. Postgraduates and students who’ve had enough of city centre noise tend to end up here.
There isn’t a right answer here, only a right fit. Some people want their bed five minutes from a lecture theatre and don’t mind the noise that comes with it. Others would rather walk a bit further and come home to somewhere quieter. Either way, it helps to actually walk the route before you commit to a year of it. Browse our city page, or read more on our blog to see what else Preston has to offer.
