Campus and city
Exeter is a two-campus institution and the choice between Streatham and Penryn meaningfully shapes daily life. The Streatham campus, on the northern edge of Exeter city, is a 300-acre estate of botanical gardens, mature woodland, ornamental lakes, and listed Edwardian and modernist buildings — widely regarded as one of the most beautiful university campuses in the United Kingdom. Students walk to lectures past sculpture, redwoods, and views across the Exe valley to Dartmoor. The Forum (the main student hub completed in 2012), the Northcott Theatre, the Sir Steve Redgrave sports centre, and the main libraries are all integrated into the landscape rather than fenced off.
First-year students at Streatham are guaranteed university accommodation, with most halls on or adjacent to the campus estate (Lafrowda, Lopes Hall, Birks Grange Village, Holland Hall). From second year onward, most students rent privately in St Davids, Pennsylvania, Mount Pleasant, and the Newtown areas — a 10 to 25 minute walk to lectures. The walk between accommodation, lectures, library, the Forum, and city centre is a daily tour of the Streatham landscape and Exeter's small but pleasant cathedral-city centre.
The Students' Guild supports more than 200 societies and 70 sports clubs, with strong rugby, sailing, surfing, equestrian, and Snowsports traditions reflecting the South West and Devon setting. Athletic Union competition is taken seriously, with Wednesday afternoons kept free for sport. The Phoenix arts centre, Gandy Street independent retail quarter, and a respectable music and pub scene provide cultural depth proportionate to a 130,000-person cathedral city — substantial, but not metropolitan. The Devon coast (Exmouth, Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton) is 20 minutes south by car or train; Dartmoor National Park is 30 minutes west; Cornwall is 90 minutes further south-west.
The Penryn Cornwall campus is functionally a separate institution. Shared with Falmouth University, it houses the Camborne School of Mines and the sustainability, marine, and renewable-energy programmes. The campus sits in a former mining landscape on the Fal estuary, 12 miles from Falmouth town, with a distinct programme range, a smaller and arts-skewed cohort (because of the Falmouth co-tenancy), and a daily life shaped by Cornish coast and surf culture rather than Devon cathedral-city culture. Many Streatham students never visit Penryn during their degree, and vice versa — this is a genuine two-campus institution rather than a single distributed campus.