Originally published 22 August 2003

We’ve seen the works-traffic come and go and we’ve watched the buildings rise in the distance as we drive down Gibbet Hill Road, but all we can think to call the new development is “Lakeside 2” or “New Lakeside”. Now the new residential development has an identity of its own in the form of “Heronbank”, the official name for “New Lakeside”. But where did the name come from?

“Lakeside” makes perfect sense. It is, after all, at the side of a lake. Heronbank doesn’t strictly speaking follow this rule, even though the occasional heron is spotted on campus. So, the university must have had a better reason for the new name. Indeed they did, in the form of an 1834 Ordinance Survey map of the area.

The development of a further 700 student rooms, and 50 self-contained apartments is part of the university’s ever-changing landscape and continual growth. A number of rooms are scheduled to be available in the autumn term for new postgraduate students.

The names given to University buildings are carefully considered by a number of parties, and ultimately approved by the Building Committee. At present buildings are either named after Chancellors of the University (Ramphal Building, Scarman House, Radcliffe House, Rootes Social Building), donors (Benefactor’s Hall, Jack Martin), or for local places or geographical features (Cryfield, Claycroft, Lakeside). Occasionally a building name commemorates a person who was not a Chancellor or donor, as with the Arthur Vick student residence, named after a former Pro-Chancellor and Council Chair, Sir Arthur Vick, when it was built in the 1990s.

So, Heronbank is named after a local place. The 1834 version of the Ordinance Survey map of Warwickshire offered a number of possible names for the new residential development but Heronbank won out and now becomes the official name for “Lakeside 2”.