Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When most Imperial students picture Silwood Park, they imagine a verdant, enigmatic, and green campus bustling with wildlife and plant species rarely found at our other campuses such as South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they’re correct – every depiction of Silwood Park holds true!
As a representative of this lesser-known group at Imperial, I’d like to emphasize the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s outdoor laboratory, covering 77 hectares and including habitats such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” forest, and open grasslands. A simple search on iNaturalist, an app for documenting and sharing biodiversity observations worldwide with a network of naturalists, shows that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, and eBird indicates that 111 bird species have been logged so far.
Interestingly, Silwood Park is also home to numerous long-term field research projects, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being two of the more prominent projects undertaken on-site.
Life as a student at Silwood Park
The campus mainly accommodates postgraduate students focused on ecology, conservation, and evolution projects. Many of us belong to several clubs based at Silwood Park. Noteworthy examples include:
- Chicken Club – taking care of the chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – frequently discussing literature of interest
- Gardening Club – overseeing the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – organizing nature walks and conservation initiatives for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the broader Imperial student body, many of us also engage in clubs based in South Kensington!
Casually, we have clubs that participate in sports like badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), hosted either at the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at indoor sports facilities in nearby towns such as Bracknell or Ascot.
Beyond club activities and classes, we have numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park boasts its own student council that organizes and facilitates these activities to ensure a dynamic and enjoyable student life! Recently, we hosted the Silwood language exchange, allowing our international community to share languages and cultures over several weeks, and our annual Chinese New Year celebration, where we made dumplings and couplets to celebrate the new lunar year. We also had community-organized parties celebrating global festivities (like Carnival) or simply for the joy of partying.
My favorite campus event is the weekly pub quiz, coordinated by our student community. It’s part of Silwood culture that the pub quiz losers set up the next one, and I can proudly claim the highest number of pub quizzes organized this year. Despite having lost many times due to my poor general trivia knowledge, there’s always great fun to be had with good company and a nice pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Although it’s a 30-minute walk from the lively atmosphere of civilization (e.g., the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never felt dull or lacking. In addition to a variety of events and activities, we have a friendly and welcoming community of students from across the globe. We all appreciate nature, our stunning campus grounds, and, more importantly, each other’s company. We’re a tight-knit community who enjoys stargazing in the winter chill on the open field beside our bar, observing the birds and mammals that visit our windows, and spending time with fellow nature enthusiasts.
Most evenings, I cook with my dear friend from India, who shares my passion for Asian cuisine and birdwatching.