Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet specializing in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation
When most students at Imperial envision Silwood Park, they picture a vibrant, enchanting, and green campus filled with wildlife and vegetation seldom found at other locations like South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they’re correct – and every portrayal of Silwood Park is precise!
As a member of this lesser-known faction within Imperial, I’d like to draw attention to the student experience, activities, and community in our natural parkland campus situated in Ascot, Berkshire.
Introducing Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s open-air laboratory, covering 77 hectares and encompassing environments such as freshwater streams, ponds, an “ancient” forest, and expansive grasslands. A quick query on iNaturalist, a tool for tracking and sharing biodiversity observations globally within a digital social network of naturalists, shows that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, while a further check on eBird indicates that 111 bird species have been documented on campus to date.
More intriguingly, Silwood Park is also home to numerous long-term field research initiatives, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being among the more prominent studies carried out on-site.
Student Experience at Silwood Park
The campus is primarily populated by postgraduate students engaged in projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Most of us belong to various clubs based at Silwood Park. Noteworthy examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for caring for the chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – who meet regularly to discuss interesting reads from their reading lists
- Gardening Club – who oversee the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – who arrange nature walks and conservation-oriented activities for students at Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the broader Imperial student community, many of us are also involved in clubs based in South Kensington, participating in their activities regularly!
Unformally, we have clubs that engage in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), which take place either on the multi-use games area (MUGA) on campus or at the indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Alongside club activities and lessons, we enjoy numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park features its own student council that organizes and coordinates such events to promote a lively and stimulating student life! Recently, we’ve hosted the Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community came together to exchange languages and cultures over a few weeks, and we also celebrated our annual Chinese New Year at the beginning of the year, where everyone collaborated to create dumplings and couplets to welcome the new lunar year. We’ve also organized community celebrations for various global festivities (like Carnival) or parties just for the sheer joy of partying.
However, my favorite campus event has to be the weekly pub quiz, organized by our student community. It’s a Silwood tradition that the quiz losers must host the next one, and I can proudly claim the title for the most quizzes set this year. Though I have certainly lost my fair share of pub quizzes due to my limited trivia knowledge, there’s always enjoyable moments to be had with great company and a good pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute walk from the lively atmosphere of civilization (like the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never seemed dull or deprived. Beyond the various events and activities, we have a friendly and welcoming community made up of students from all corners of the globe.