It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to Collingwood College. While the largest of Durham University’s seventeen colleges, we are a warm and friendly community that aspires to be your home away from home.

Here at ‘The Wood’ we help empower our students to develop their full potential in meaningful ways. Our college is home to a wide-range of societies, including art and dance studios, media suite, produce podcasts and have world class music facilities. We run musicals, plays and other productions in our state-of-the art theatre throughout the year.

At Collingwood, we are passionate about sport and cater for a wide variety of interests. Our college supports student abilities at any level, including eighteen men’s and women’s football teams, eight netball teams and much more. Our college facilities include a floodlit multi-use games area, cricket nets and tennis courts.

Our students are active citizens supporting a wide-ranging of charities and outreach activities across the local, national and international level. There are opportunities to pursue many varieties of interests whether art, film, music, politics, tech, sport or beyond.

Collingwood’s motto is ‘Aime le Meilleur’ (or ‘love the best’). We support our students’ successes wherever their endeavours inspire them. We will launch an AI, ethics and leadership programme with invited expert speakers to engage and inspire drawn from our alumni and friends.

I look forward to welcoming you to the Wood and our friendly staff are on hand to support your transition to university and what I hope will be an enormously rewarding, challenging and enjoyable experience.

Thom Brooks

Principal of Collingwood College & Professor of Law and Government

Hello there! I’m Ana, and I’m your JCR President this year. I’m just finishing my Masters’ in Classics. My job is to look after the JCR at Collingwood, both its physical space and its people. If you have questions or need any help, please drop me an email at collingwood.president@durham.ac.uk.

I recommend you follow @woodfreshers on Instagram for all your key Freshers’ Week updates and @CollingwoodJCR for all general JCR updates! Enjoy your summer, and I’ll see you in September!

Ana Stinson

JCR President 2026/27