Medway-Sydenham Hall (also referred to as Med-Syd or MSH) is a co-ed residence at the University of Western Ontario (UWO). It is the third largest residence on campus, home to about 613 students. It is also the oldest residence still operating on campus.
Medway Hall was built in 1958 as an all male residence. Sydenham Hall was built in 1961 as an all male residence. Both buildings operated as separate all male residences and were bitter rivals until 1986. In 1986, Sydenham Hall was converted to an all female residence as Medway Hall remained all male. Both halls remained single gender until 1997 when Medway Hall and Sydenham Hall both went co-ed and joined under the title Medway Sydenham Hall. Medway Sydenham Hall has made great progress since 1997 and is regularly recognized as one of the strongest residence communities on campus and home to the most successful and productive Resident's Council; The Medway Sydenham Hall Residents' Council.
Medway-Sydenham consists of two separate residences that are connected through a tunnel. Both Medway and Sydenham are three stories high and contains only stairs and no elevators.
Medway contains a total of nine floors, all 3 floors per three units. The fourth unit in Medway is made up of the Thomas L. Hoskin Library (also known as the Medlib), the Formal Lounge (also known as the Flounj) and the Green Room (formerly the Medway Lounge). The four units are positioned in a rectangular shape, forming a Quad in the center.
* Unit: WPM --- Floors: Murphy, Peache, Wilson
* Unit: MGM --- Floors: Gibbons, McKibben, Meredith
* Unit: BED --- Floors: Beattie, Drury, Eccles
The word floor is more associated with the names than with actually landings of a building. The floors of the third floor (Eccles, Meredith and Wilson) are connected by the hallway as are the floors of the second floor (Drury, McKibben and Peache). Although they are connected by the hallway, they are considered to be of distinct groups. In the past, they were separated by doors that were kept closed and locked.
The Sydenham building design is very similar to Medway's. It has a total of 9 floors within 3 units. The fourth section in Sydenham consists of the Cafeteria and the Sydenham Lounge. Unlike Medway, Sydenham's 3 units are named as a whole. Similar to the first floor of Medway, none of the units floors are connected directly to each other. They are only connected by the underground tunnel system.
* Unit: Spencely Tamblyn (ST) --- Floors: ST-1, ST-2, ST-3
* Unit: James Neville (JN) --- Floors: JN-1, JN-2, JN-3
* Unit: Crane Ingram (CI) --- Floors: CI-1, CI-2, CI-3