Travel scholarship provides ‘amazing experience’ for architecture students

The Gavin Pomeroy Travel Scholarship was kindly funded by a former tutor's legacy
Finn Woodrow in Georgia thanks to the Gavin Pomeroy scholarship
Finn Woodrow in Georgia thanks to the Gavin Pomeroy Travel Scholarship 

Architecture students at the University of Plymouth will be able to broaden their horizons thanks to a new travel scholarship – kindly funded by a former tutor’s legacy.
Gavin Pomeroy, who taught at the University for over 30 years before his retirement in 1999, left £50,000 in his will especially for a travel scholarship to support students looking to supplement their learning.
The Gavin Pomeroy Travel Scholarship is open to second-year Architecture students, and can be used for anything related to travel – whether it’s attending a conference, or visiting a city to understand more about its cultural buildings.
A keen traveller himself, Gavin wanted the money to support students’ passion for the programme, with up to £1,000 available to apply for each year.
Finn Woodrow was named as the first recipient, who chose to travel to Tbilisi, Georgia to study how politics influences the design of houses in the region.

As a minimally-travelled person, the chance to experience a new place, especially with developed reasoning behind it, was an amazing experience.

Tbilisi showed me that cities, like the countryside that I grew up in, in Cornwall, could also be places of poetic dwelling. Exploring these ideas further through my dissertation allowed me to unpick the complex and unique dynamic between planning policies and informal building that caused this to develop in Tbilisi. 
This research also helped me to confront the romanticism of these environments that I was previously guilty of. 
In summary, the Gavin Pomeroy Travelling Scholarship empowered me to dive deeply into an area of interest that I otherwise would not have had the chance to do; fundamentally changing my understanding of cities and architecture.
Finn Woodrow, the first recipient of the Gavin Pomeroy Travel Scholarship 

Despite not having had the privilege of working with Gavin, I know the impact he left on the University.

It’s so touching that he left this gift in his will to deepen his already strong legacy here, reflecting his love of architecture and travel.
It’s an amazing opportunity for our students to apply for, and I know that our first winner, Finn, really made the most of it.

Ricky BurkeDr Ricky Burke
Programme lead for BA (Hons) Architecture

Gavin was born in Newlyn, Cornwall in 1929 before moving to Mousehole in early childhood. He started as a trainee architect in 1947, before embarking on his passion for teaching in the mid-1950s.
His entire teaching career was spent at the University of Plymouth, where he lectured until retiring in 1999. He loved the arts as a whole, enjoying sketching, painting, music and poetry. He died in 2022.
Architectural engineering, building, architecture