Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When many Imperial students envision Silwood Park, they picture a vibrant, enigmatic, and verdant campus overflowing with wildlife and vegetation that aren’t typically found at other campuses like South Kensington or White City. In various aspects, they are correct – every depiction of Silwood Park holds true!
As a member of this lesser-known faculty at Imperial, I wish to showcase the student experience, activities, and community at our nature-rich campus in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s open-air laboratory, spanning 77 hectares of land and featuring environments such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” woodland, and expansive grasslands. A straightforward search on iNaturalist, an application for documenting and sharing biodiversity observations worldwide within an online community of naturalists, reveals that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, along with a further search on eBird that indicates 111 bird species documented thus far.
Moreover, Silwood Park is the arena for numerous long-term field studies, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being two of the more prominent initiatives conducted on-site.
Student life at Silwood Park
The campus primarily accommodates postgraduate students who are engaged in projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Many of us belong to several clubs established at Silwood Park. Noteworthy examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for the care of the chickens kept behind our residence halls
- Book Club – which convenes regularly to discuss books of interest from their reading lists
- Gardening Club – which oversees the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – which organizes nature walks and conservation-oriented activities for students on the Silwood Park Campus.
Being part of the broader Imperial student body, many of us are also members and frequently engage in activities of clubs located in South Kensington as well!
Casually, we also have clubs that partake in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (which happens to be my favorite!), based either on the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Aside from club activities and classes, we hold numerous community-driven events on campus. Silwood Park has its own student council that organizes and coordinates such activities to ensure a lively and stimulating student life! Recently, we hosted the Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community united to share languages and cultures over several weeks, and we also celebrated our annual Chinese New Year event at the onset of the year, where everyone gathered to create dumplings and couplets to welcome the new lunar year. Additionally, we’ve enjoyed community-organized parties celebrating events from across the globe (such as Carnival), or simply parties for the joy of celebrations.
My favorite campus event, however, has to be the weekly pub quiz, orchestrated by our student community. It’s an ingrained part of Silwood culture that the quiz losers are tasked with organizing the next one, and I can proudly assert that I’ve set the highest number of pub quizzes this year. Despite my frequent failures in pub quizzes due to limited trivia knowledge, there’s consistently great fun to be found with wonderful company and a refreshing pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute walk from the bustling essence of civilization (such as the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never felt dull or unfulfilling. Besides the myriad of events and activities, we boast a friendly and inclusive community made up of students from around the globe. All of