On Sunday 4 May 2025, the Wolfson College Bar Committee – fondly known around these parts as BarCo – embarked on an arduous journey; along the winding roads of rural Oxfordshire, around the dizzying roundabouts of Milton Keynes, and across the eerie stillness of Bedfordshire, before ending up in a most strange and faraway land… Cambridge.
BarCo were there to meet their counterparts, their alter-egos, their Doppelgänger. The folk at our sister college who share a similar ‘passion-to-the-brim’ enthusiasm for managing a student-run bar. The Darwin College BarComm.
Members of Darwin BarComm and Wolfson BarCo at Darwin College Bar, Cambridge
Student-run bars are an increasingly rare operation in Oxbridge. With many colleges outsourcing their on-site watering holes to external companies, Wolfson remains one of the few bastions of freedom and opportunity for the patrons who step through our Cellar Bar doors on a cold winter night or warm summer evening, looking for refreshment and good company.
BarCo are proud of the many years of work poured into keeping our Cellar Bar a safe, welcoming, and inclusive place for many generations of Wolfies.
One of the few other places to still operate an entirely student-run model is our sister college in Cambridge, Darwin. Hot off the back of a very successful Darwin Day back in March (where – ahem – Wolfson won the trophy for the first year since time immemorial), nine members of Wolfson BarCo past and present decided to make the trip over to Cambridge for an afternoon on Darwin’s private banks of the Cam.
There, we shared ideas about best practice, swapped stories about our respective setups, and brainstormed fresh ideas for cross-university bar committee collaboration – all over some fine BBQ food and local ales, of course. There was plenty of good cheer, some excellent beer sampling, and even a tour of the inner realms of DarBar itself that followed. We found out all the juicy details of how their beer lines were rigged, their brand of dishwasher, and the type of card machine they use to manage payments. Never a dull moment with the Bar Committees!
We hope that the venture will be the start of an annual return fixture between both sets of bar and social enthusiasts in the respective colleges, so that we can continue to champion the vital benefits that come from having a bar run by a student community for its student community.
