Sitting on money

It's plain amazing to think that the Sneyd family had to do very very little to 'earn' this huge hall.  The land they owned just had acres and acres of coal underneath it - and they made a handsome living from the rights.  They even built a racecourse (no longer there) at the end of one of their drives!

The last Sneyd died in the fifties I think, and by then this hall had already become part of what was to be Keele University.

Stables fit for a vice-chancellor

The University of Keele took over the old Sneyd Hall and its estate in the 1950s - and the institution has never looked back since.

This courtyard complex in the picture is a little distance off from the main hall, built as the estate stables in the nineteenth century.  It is named The Clock House.
For some odd reason, it was made the Vice-Chancellor's official residence.

Lady in a niche

This charming sculpture is to be found tucked away in a niche, almost out of sight, in Keele Hall, the mansion that is the oldest part of Keele University.

It has no attribution or labelling.
I was rather wondering who the sculptor was, but no one seemed to know.

Keele's prison... not

This church looked like a jail to me, the first time I saw it. Those imposing keep-like towers and the narrow windows gave me a chill. 
It's one of the major buildings overlooking the main square on the Keele University campus, and I wondered then what brave university-department could be housed there - dissection studies perhaps?

The fact that it turned out to be the university church bemused me.

Keele is a modern university, established just after the war, and the church is deliberately multi-denominational. So, maybe the intention of the look was deliberate - in that it could not be identified with any one Christian sect or tradition.
It's made of Staffordshire blue-brick.

Link: Keele Chapel Church