I was looking at pictures of the school today and had a thought that might be a good idea for us to work out an "official" layout of what is where on the school, so to have that for the ready reference of all authors involved on this project, should they need it, and can all be consistent with each other on what's where.

I'm not talking about anything super detailed, of course, just...that wing of the school houses those particular rooms and so on. You know, where what room of the school we best figure is located in what region of the school.

We already can have a rough idea of the general locations for the classrooms, dorms, and the headmare's office, thanks to that "tour" Spike gives in "Molt Down"...

...and that door with the stylized book over it often seen in the school's fountain square (NOTE: I usually refer to it as a school quad) is what I've long figured leads to the school library and there's not really really anything that I've found that suggests otherwise. But I figure we can work out a few more besides that, as well as a bit better precision for some of those locations Spike alludes to.

For example, I realized the headmare's office must sit directly under the school's clock in the big tower located to the back, thanks to this shot of Cozy in "School Raze Part 2" showing a rare view of its roof and revealing the other side of that same clock face.

I also realized the lecture hall, or the Magic classroom, has the Friendship Castle easily visible from it's window...

...suggesting that said room is probably located at the front of the school. Given the window shape, it's window is probably the one on the inner middle left of the school, as can be seen here:

Further, I've noticed that Fluttershy's classroom seems to overlook the school quad from about the second or third floor...

...as well as the windows of this major corridor in the school, especially a few moments after this scene as Discord flies out the window would seem to suggest.

Speaking of the school's fountain square, I've noticed it's almost always viewed from one particular side, so that you often get views of three of its (I believe) more forward facing sides, but almost never its fourth rearmost side. Which is a shame, because I feel like if we had a good all-around view of that quad, we'd have a much better idea of what was where in the school. Nonetheless, the following pictures I've found helps to piece together a rough picture of what all sides of it likely look like:

On that last picture--you see on that rearmost building that pale blue door to the immediate right of the opening the little creek of water flows out of? Looking at footage from "The Hearth's Warming Club," it seems to suggest that door is the entrance, or at least one of them, to the student dormitories.

Which is interesting, because Spike's "tour" mentioned earlier seemed to suggest they instead sat somewhere to the upper left of that same scene. But I guess that just proves the show's staff never had a definitive layout of what is where in this school, so that leaves it to us to do it for them!

A few final notes while I'm at it--a friendly reminder that "2, 4, 6, Greaaaat" showed that the buckball field, track, and stadium (of sorts) sat in a field to the right of the school but still within easy viewing distance of each other:

Also, I've been trying to figure out where this room from "A Matter of Principals" is at. It's clearly a tower room, and not an especially big one, but I can't decide on any one tower visible on the school that would seem to fit (let alone one that would be able to view all of the areas of the school it implies it can)...

Finally...this pic views the school entrance from an angle that shows clearly there's this little building sitting right next to it that doesn't seem to be directly attached to the rest of the school, and I'm just wondering now what that building's purpose is...ground-keeper's building, perhaps?

Anyway, that's a few locations at the school I've narrowed down to probable areas on where they are...anybody got anything else to add, or any other details to present that I've overlooked?

Whooo someone else made a thread!

Also this is an impressive amount of work, and also despite what you said about the show's creators there is a surprising amount of consistency to the layout of the school according to what you found. I would have just assumed that they threw together some random assets and called it a day.

Realizing I had overlooked a couple other episodes for scenes that could give clues towards what might lie where, I've done a bit more research, with special focus on places such as the other major classrooms (Applejack's, Rarity's, Rainbow's) and a few other miscellaneous locations, but haven't come up with anything too definite to add.

However, in "Marks For Effort," there is a scene where the CMC are standing just outside the door to Applejack's classroom, and I noticed that it has the red barn-like walls on the outside too. We can also tell from the doorway that it opens directly outside, is on ground level, and seems to be part of the school quad (since the opening scene of "Marks For Effort" never has the CMC leaving that quad area and seems to be accessible from there).

In the same episode, I also realized Fluttershy's classroom has a notable and sizeable balcony that protrudes outward from the side of its building, which should give me something obvious to look for since I already established that it appeared to overlook that same student quad. Both of these traits should make both classrooms easy to spot from the outside in the quad, but none of the pics I can find of said quad have anything that matches...until I recalled that fourth side quad that I mentioned before was barely ever shown and never in full--seeing the lack of any other evidence to say otherwise then, I think I want to assume both of those classrooms sit on that fourth side, where they can't be easily seen. If so, then I'd like to think Applejack's classroom sits to one side, judging off the lack of obvious landmarks you can see from its door that should otherwise be visible, but that's personal opinion.

Not a definitive answer, but it'd seem like it work for our purposes for now.

Couple of other things:

No clue on where Starlight's student counselor's office sits, but I did realize for the first time that it houses a set of bookcases that has a weird inward slant to it...

...and the only thing I can think to explain it is either it's just a very peculiar bookcase design for stylistic reasons...or it's deliberately shaped that way so to make room for something else, which led me to wonder if maybe this implied Starlight's office actually sits under a staircase or something similar. But the rare views we get of the hallway outside of said office doesn't seem to have any such staircases immediately obvious around it, so I guess this is open to interpretation.

Also no clue on where Rainbow's classroom/gymnasium is located, but seeing "2, 4, 6, Greaaaat" shows Rainbow can clearly see the buckball field from its window (portrayed as closer than it really ought to be but beside the point), that would suggest it'd be on the right side of the school so it can be nearest to the field, which does make a lot of sense, so even though there's nothing on the school's exterior that seems like would match with this room, I don't see a reason why to assume differently at the moment.

Tried to pinpoint where the teacher lounge might be, but it didn't appear often enough to get any real clues. I'd assume it's probably not far from the headmare's office though, because logistics--at least, that's how I'd design the building.

"Hearth's Warming Club" features a cozy room where the tree and other holiday decorations are set up, but the room is never given an actual label.

Going from appearances though, it appears to be a sort of common room or student lounge, a place where students (or staff, I suppose) can go and unwind from school life, or meet up for studying, group activities, etc. I personally have assumed in my own writing that the school does in fact have such a lounge just because I fancied the idea, so to see the show's staff might've had the same idea after all is kinda cool. Like most rooms, this lounge overlooks the school quad, and would in fact have to in order for Gallus's hasty escape from that room and going through that quad to make much sense. Since it also has windows on at least two of its walls, that also suggests it sits in one corner of its building.

Interestingly, this same commons room appears to have been recycled in the short "Starlight the Hypnotist," where Twilight, Gallus, and Smolder are all seated at a table eating bowls of soup...

(at about the 1:00 mark)

...which suggests the room could also have been a sort of cafeteria...but IMO it looks too homely for that purpose...I dunno. In any case, the school has to have some sort of cafeteria (or like room) somewhere that was never clearly shown, so we might as well work at deciding on a spot we'd want it to have while we're at it.

Finally, I also realized that the school quad and most of the school is seated upon atop a scenic grouping of hills...however, it's main entrance is seated BELOW all of that in the base of those hills, making me wonder if the entrance, main hall, and more of the school might actually be located underground (either that, or the school quad and the rest are simply built on top of what is, in reality, the roof of another part of the school). If so, then that might mean there may be more to the school than is immediately visible when seen from the outside--which makes sense to me, because the school, as much as I love its overall design, did always seem a bit on the small side for the number of students it appeared to house at any given time. If we want to assume this is in fact the case, though, then we can always assume the as-yet still unaccounted areas of the school are located somewhere in that region.

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It seemed to vary on how featured in the show the setting was. If it was a setting the show's crew knew wasn't going to feature much or even at all beyond just the one scene, then they didn't seem to worry too much about consistency. However, if it was a setting they knew likely would feature repeatedly throughout episodes or was a fairly major setting, then they tended to go the extra mile and at least get the major features worked out on what sits in relation to the rest in that setting, like how Golden Oaks library was always pretty consistent on where all of its major rooms sat in relation to each other all throughout its time in the show (for any additional rooms that might be added after the fact and had no guarantees might need to appear again though, all bets were off).

Since they knew the school would be a major feature throughout season 8 (and likely season 9 as well as talk from the show's crew suggests aspects of production for seasons tended to overlap), the show's crew seems to have at least kept in mind where they figured the major features probably ought to sit, and seemed to have ideas where the rest might sit in relation to rest, even if they were never formally nailed down in-episode.

The only exception I can think of to all of this is Twilight's Castle...but then that's why it has a reputation among fans for being bigger on the inside and all that.

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Hats off for your research on this! The only thing I have to add is that the Pocket Ponies pinball mobile game is also set in the School of Friendship, and the overworld seems to be designed so its consistent with the building layout in the show. I’ll play through it again when I get a chance and see if there are any hints about where things might be located.

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Please do! I was unaware such a thing existed, so I'm curious to know if it has anything that can be added.

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All right, turns out I never deleted it from my phone. Here’s what I found in the game.

First up, this is the overview. In the game, the quad is actually separate from the main academic building, and they also connect with the theater. The “quad” has only one side, which contradicts what’s depicted in the show, so I think that’s just an edit to make it easier to see the park area.

The front building doesn’t have much in the game. It’s just a hallway with two classrooms and the gym.

Interestingly, the pathway between the front building and the quad doesn’t show up. Here’s the actual doorway:

In the quad, we do see the doorway to Applejack’s classroom:

Here’s a gate in the quad which leads to the theater. I don’t remember anything like this in the show, so take it with a grain fo salt. Also, all hail Queen Applejack:

Finally, this doorway from the quad leads to a classroom with Starlight in it. I don’t know if this represents anything from a show, but figured I’d throw it in.

Overall, it looks like the quad is behind the main building (either with a path or a direct connection), and that AJ’s classroom opens onto the quad. The only new info I’ve gotten is the gym could be in the main building.

If we’re doing any stories in the theater (I don’t remember any), let me know and I can go investigate that in game too.

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Hey, I know exactly which doorway on the quad they're showing for AJ's classroom! See that doorway on the far left of this picture?

As you can see though, the room the show suggests is behind that door is clearly not AJ's classroom. Further, the one instance I can find where the show shows that classroom from the outside wouldn't seem to match that doorway either:

Interestingly, the door they have leading to that classroom with Starlight appears to be the same one I determined earlier likely led to the student dormitories.

It's also interesting they have the gym as part of that section of the school's front building(s), because while it does seem logical, there's nothing in that portion of the school's structure that would seem to match what we see of the gym's interior (which has portions that opens to the outside, presumably for the benefit of the flying creatures at the school)...but then there's nothing else I can find in the school's exterior that matches that pesky gym either, so maybe it's a moot point.

I'll cut the game some slack though, because they clearly had to simplify and make other concessions for the sake of gameplay and the platform used, otherwise it wouldn't work so well as a game. They're otherwise surprisingly accurate to the show, and they present the school in much more detail than I would've expected of them--they clearly did their research for this, and I gotta applaud them for that.

As for the theater...I'm honestly not sure where exactly it sits in relation to the school, other than it's relatively nearby, as this screenshot seems to suggest:

If I were to hazard to guess though, it's to the left of the school (if it were behind it, I would think there would be more signs of those mountains we can clearly see sit behind the whole campus), which is interesting, because I think that's the only time the school is viewed from that side.

So I was looking at this picture of the commons room again:

And realized (very belatedly) that the exposed rafters and the visible slant of the underside of the roof means this room is more than likely on the top floor of its building. A pretty minor note, really...until I realized that meant that when Gallus jumped out its window after pouring goo powder on the tree, it must have been quite a jump, surely from a couple of stories up. I mean, yeah, he's got wings and all, but since using those wings would only give him away to Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike who saw him jump, I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted to rely on them too much, which got me thinking about just how high up that jump must have been. I figure it probably wasn't much more than three or so stories up tops. Much higher than that and Gallus would've either needed something in-between the window and the ground to land on or be forced to use his wings and glide to safety long enough that he surely would've been seen by Twilight and the others and be clued in that they were looking for at least a winged creature (I mean, yeah, they admit later on that they had figured Gallus was the culprit, but Twilight was also quick to point out at the start that they shouldn't make assumptions implying they weren't certain either, so...).

Why is this important? Because with this commons room being on the top floor of its building, and assuming I'm right and it's probably not higher than three or so stories up, then that limits which building it can be. We also know this room overlooks the school quad, furthering limiting which building it could be. Since we also know the quad sits basically in the middle of the school grounds, this side view of the school gives us a good idea of the dimensions of all the buildings surrounding it:

Most are only two or three stories tall (discounting attached spires), excepting the tall tower at the back of the quad, which is easily the school's tallest structure. To jump from its top window to the ground would be quite a leap for any creature, winged or not, so I'm not inclined to think that's where the commons room is--and we know it's not anyway, because I already determined the topmost rooms of this tower is already occupied by the school's clock and the headmare's office (see thread's first post). So by process of elimination, that means one of the other three, much shorter, major buildings surrounding the quad are more likely to house it. And seeing Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike all run into the school quad after leaving that commons room coming in from the left...

(at about the 0:35 second mark)

...then that suggests the building on that side of the quad is the one that houses the commons room. Best picture I can find that shows more than only a partial glimpse of said building is this:

...But you get the idea. Another piece of the puzzle found and all that.

Some additional things: given the above revelation, this has lead me to wonder if I need to reassess the location of the school dorms, on the grounds that I would think that the dorms and the commons room would be in the same building, plus the building I had originally pinned to be housing the school dorms seems more often portrayed to house classrooms in other episodes, leaving it feeling not quite big enough to also house dorms, so I'm thinking I'd prefer picturing it in this same building as the commons room (especially as we know comparatively less about this building than some of the others, so its floor space is more "free," so to speak), but then that's why this thread exists at all.

Also, in researching all of this, I figured out where Rarity's classroom is! "The End in Friend" literally starts out showing the doorway to it from outside, then pans to one side showing a number of landmarks that can be used to determine where the scene is:

As it happens, the door to her classroom appears to be the same door as the one portrayed here in this pic, slightly behind and to the left of Discord.

Which didn't seem to me like it would've been a large enough an area to house Rarity's classroom, but hey, if the show's going to give me a freebee, I'll roll with it.

This means the school's major classrooms seem to be located all over the grounds (which you'd sort of expect anyway), but most, near as I can tell, seem to be centered in that one major building to the back of the quad, the same building housing the school clock and the headmare's office. As it's the biggest, this does make a degree of sense. But as I already indicated, there are some exceptions to that, like Twilight's lecture hall--see the thread's first post--and possibly Pinkie's classroom. All of the generic, more uniformly designed, classrooms also seem to be all over the campus.

Finally, I've noticed there's a whole bunch of interesting little nooks and crannies throughout this whole school that the show only gives us fleeting glimpses of--little balconies or mezzanines that overlook hallways, various bridges interconnecting buildings and spanning waterfalls, more than one way in and out of the campus, and numerous winding paths that run all around it. So I'd like to challenge everybody that's writing a story for this series to try and branch out from the generic and major locations we've already seen and try and set scenes in some of these lesser known areas where possible and logical, even if it's just the spot where everybody stops to converse for a second, so we can have the chance to explore some these other areas too. I'm finding there's a lot more to this school's design than you initially might notice, and it's making me love its design even more than when I started out on all this.

*Slowclap*

Also, just thought I'd share this here, it's a vector done of the Treehouse: https://www.deviantart.com/mlp-silver-quill/art/Friendship-Clubhouse-Vector-799715139

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Hey, that last shot with the groundskeeper's building or whatever it is in it, where you can clearly see the Sun...do you know offhand if that shot is morning or afternoon? I.e., are we looking east or west? I'm assuming dawn and thus east and therefore the side entrance with the lawn in the first pic is on the west side.

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I can tell you that screenshot is from "A Matter of Principals" just after seeing Twilight and company off on their supposed friendship mission and Starlight and Spike had just finished dealing with Discord, Starlight downplaying the potential trouble Discord will ultimately cause. Nothing in that scene that I can find clearly conveys a clear sense of time of day, or even if it might be before or after the official start of that school day, or even if it's right in the middle of one--it depends on when exactly the Mane 6 left on their "quest" after being alerted of it, but of course the episode does nothing to detail that.

I know this shot is viewing the school from its right side though, and that if the camera were to pan far enough to the left, you would see the Friendship Castle from the front on. And I know both the castle and the school appear to sit on the far side of Ponyville. However, Canterlot doesn't appear to be visible in the distance anywhere around it, so whichever side of Ponyville its on, its apparently not the side that faces Canterlot. The show's never really been precise or consistent enough with its geography beyond that to count on it providing any trustworthy clues beyond that.

I'm not sure where the sun rises or sets from is even reliable enough to use as a navigational aide in Equestria anyway, seeing it's movement is one hundred percent artifically generated and guided, and we've seen plenty of times where it is moved off the conventional path it's normally accustomed to take, meaning it doesn't necessarily have to follow the same rise-in-the-east-set-in-the-west pattern we have IRL, nor that it even is customarily doing so normally.

But since it apparently matters to somebody, I'll just arbitrarily pick one that makes sense to me...uhhhhh, I'd say we're viewing the school from its west side...because my gut says so.

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Got it. West side it is. Comin' from the west side. Nothin' but the west side.

So that makes its side entrance in the first pic on the east side.

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See, you've got this.

Earlier I had speculated that part of the school's campus might be located underground, seeing that the main front entrance seems to be embedded within the hillside the rest of the campus is visibly sitting on top of.

Then as we seem to have settled on making Zecora a new teacher at the school for this series over in the brainstorming thread, I wanted to suggest that, with that in mind, we put Zecora's classroom in this supposed underground area. It might be just me thinking of Harry Potter and how its potions class was in Hogwarts dungeons that's leading me to this deduction...but I really like the setting for that for a Zecora class--a sort of small amphitheater area with an arching ceiling, all decked out and decorated like how Zecora's hut would be, with a cauldron of smoldering potions in the center giving the room a mystical glow--plus it'll give us an excuse to explore a less well-known area of the school to boot.

For the record I love maps and am dangerously close to using all of this to try and put together an actual floor plan in MSPaint.

Thinking on it, isn't it a bit odd to have potions in the dungeon? Wouldn't you need someplace more well lit and properly ventilated if you want to see what you're doing and make sure people don't pass out from fumes?

But then, Hogwarts was not the best of schools, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

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Passing out from the fumes is an important part of the learning experience.

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Maybe the room was magicked in some manner to make the fumes to just...disappear or something.

But then again, the whole magical community in the world of Harry Potter did seem very backwards on the subject of workplace/school safety, and didn't seem to have much in the way of safety regulations on such things...probably because they arrogantly thought they could just use magic to solve such problems.

In our case, I'm quite sure Zecora would have whatever classroom she uses to have all of the right safety measures in place, meeting with her own Zebra standards (whatever those are, but it's established that she has them) as well as probably any other additional measures the school in general would insist on as a precaution.

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If not you, then it'll probably be me--I've exhausted about all I can glean from screenshots alone, so piecing together a master map would be the next logical step at this point. I keep holding off though on the grounds that I keep wondering if that's not excessive though.

I'm sort of eh on the basement concept? Largely because we know the Tree's roots are down there, and their presence (and the presence of the entire cavern network they're in) is a surprise when it appears in S8. Having a subterranean section to the school somehow without noticing an entire crystal cavern complex seems like a weird thing to me.

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I sort of figured that the catacombs you speak of are part of an even lower portion of the school, likely the school's foundations and probably weren't meant to be regularly accessed once construction of the school was finished...but the Tree of Harmony obviously thought differently.

The "underground" section would be more considered just another section of the school, regularly accessed by all occupants. It is, after all, where the school's entry hall appears to be. So in many ways it's probably not going to appear all that different from the rest of the school, in terms of structure, design, or decor, it's just...underground. (If it weren't so late where I am at the time I've writing this, I'd take the time to find a real-world example of what I'm talking about--maybe in the morning)

The subject of dungeons specifically in fact really only came up because I likened it to the Hogwarts potions class--Zecora's class wouldn't be in an actual dungeon though.

We've already gotten this part pretty well covered and this image doesn't really add anything too new for reference, but I just found this nice screenshot that shows a wide panning view of the school, Twilight's Castle, and a good share of Ponyville, giving you a rough idea of where some of the major landmarks lie in relation to each other, so I figured I'd add it to the list here for everybody's reference, in case it's needed.

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Was that big hill that the school was built into always there or did they geomance it up?

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For the most part...it wasn't clearly there initially when they first introduced Twilight's castle in the season 4 finale...

...but every appearance of the castle since has what looks to be the same hill, it's just hadn't ever been the real focus of any shot until the school was introduced--hadn't been a need to.

I think the show's staff may have altered the hill's shape slightly when adding the school (could always argue this is due to the school's construction changing the landscape slightly), but other than that, those are the only real discrepancies I see about it.

Interestingly, that little lake that the school sits at appears to have always been portrayed there, or at least real close by.

As for whether or not it was there all the rest of the time in the show before the castle or the school, Ponyville has always been shown being surrounded by similar mountains/hills, and while none are really ever shown in any great detail beforehand, any one of them could easily be that same hill. Or you could just as easily argue that Ponyville was never viewed in the show from the right direction so to clearly pic out that specific hill until after the castle's appearance gave the show's staff a reason to (though I highly doubt the layout of Ponyville's surrounding terrain was ever that planned out or consistent, but that's out-of-universe talk).

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You know, I never really realized how far offset from Ponyville proper the castle and subsequently the school are. No wonder the town itself didn't actually change that much with the addition of these two behemoths.

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Yeah, it really is all off to one side of Ponyville. Unfortunately, can't tell with certainty to which side of Ponyville it is...though I keep wanting to think it's probably to the east.

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Actually, yes we can.

I was going through various images to try and work out a location by triangulating it off known locations (such as that we know Sweet Apple Acres is on the western side of town and Town Hall is dead center). Then I found, well, this:

While not to scale, it is an official map from issue 41 of the comics. It matches up with all other aspects we know about Ponyville's layout, so there's no reason to doubt it.

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Huh, how'd I never know that was made? I love maps!

Heh, est. Once Upon a Time. I like that.

7345350
Well, that seems reasonable enough of a map...I mean, I question whether or not the train tracks really wrap around Ponyville entirely like that, but it otherwise seems accurate enough...

My only real objection to it is that it suggests Canterlot lies to the west of Ponyville, but every map in the show shows it as lying to the north.

Even the cutie map seems to follow this, though Ponyville's really hard to pick out on that map. Still, there is this image from The Cutie Map:

But this isn't that big a deal, though, as we can just easily assume that the compass rose just needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the right. Ponyville itself, however, would remain in that same orientation, because as I mentioned before, it's quite clear Canterlot is not visible anywhere behind Twilight's castle, which means the side it resides on is NOT the side that faces Canterlot.

Also, it appears that map's compass rose has east and west mistakenly swapped--shouldn't it be the other way around?

Anyway, assuming this map is otherwise accurate save for those details, I guess that puts the school on the west side of Ponyville.

My only real objection to it is that it suggests Canterlot lies to the west of Ponyville, but every map in the show shows it as lying to the north.

I dismiss the signpost because it only points east and west - it doesn't seem to indicate anything is north or south of Ponyville at all, which we know is false. And yeah, the compass rose is an obvious mistake.

I do think you're wrong though about the location of the school, though.

So assuming that the Castle is where the map says it is (north-east-ish), there's two pieces of info we have. The first is that we know the Castle's front door faces the middle of town. We've got ample enough evidence of that much. The second is that if you're looking at the Castle's front door, the School is on the right side. So orientation-wise, the right side of the Castle would be eastward from the town.

Given perspectives and what we're aware of, on the map it'd be about the polar opposite of where Sweet Apple Acres is.

7346906

So assuming that the Castle is where the map says it is (north-east-ish), there's two pieces of info we have. The first is that we know the Castle's front door faces the middle of town. We've got ample enough evidence of that much. The second is that if you're looking at the Castle's front door, the School is on the right side. So orientation-wise, the right side of the Castle would be eastward from the town.

This assumes the castle sits towards the north side of Ponyville, but this cannot be, because Canterlot would then be visible somewhere behind it, which we know because of so many establishing shots of Ponyville show Canterlot clearly visible from the town. And yet, as my previous posts show, Canterlot is never visible in the distance behind the school or the castle, so they cannot sit on the north side of town.

This means it could only sit on the west, east, or south sides of town. I sort of doubt it's on the south, especially as that would put both in close proximity of Everfree, and the few times we get views of where Everfree borders Ponyville, neither the castle or school is visible, plus the few rare times we get a sense of how long it takes to travel from the school or castle towards the Everfree, it often feels like it takes a bit of a walk to get there. So that suggests the castle and school would more likely sit on either the east or west sides of town. If on the east, then the school itself sits to the southeast of Ponyville, if on the west, then to the north west of Ponyville, technically speaking.

However, both the castle and the school are so close together, I'm not sure it really matters. Most ponies are probably just going to group both together as being in the same general direction (e.g. east or west) and, quite honestly? For our purposes we really only need a general direction anyway.

Which side of the town it can be clearly depends on what map you look at. As said before, I'm favoring the west side, because, to me, that just seems to make sense to me and fits what we can confirm.

In other news, I found a screenshot that better shows off the left side of the school quad that I had previously not been able to locate any good views of (I hadn't thought the episode this stems from would've had such a view, but low and behold it does!)

Doesn't really tell us anything new about the school or the quad, but it's nice to have what that side of the quad is supposed to look like be a bit more clearly established.